Basket Lift from Lolly

Hey everyone... I finally finished the basket I was working on. The idea is from an online Prima class that Lolly Chessie taught. If you want to see how Lolly did hers, here's the link to the Ustream page: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13238548.

These are the glimmermists I used: apple (mostly), hula hoop, a bit of dragonfly, and finished it off with marshmallow. Most of the flowers were spritzedwith glimmermist even though some were already a color; the glimmermist enhanced the color. Others I bought white specifically to mist with color. All in all, I was very pleased with how they turned out. I even msted the leaves which turned out having just a pretty shimmer to them. The pretty paper that Lolly used for her pleating around the basket was impossibe to find so I went with something I thought was just as pretty and would match the flowers I had picked up. There is a mixture of silk & Prima flowers used. The feather & butterfly came from Hobby Lobby. I found a roll of the lace trim at Michael's in ivory and distressed it with Tim Holtz's old paper ink.

Here it it all finished!

I'm moving my "studio" craft room around and even though I have the paper organization drafted out, I can't take pics til I'm done with the move. I will, however, take pics of the move so you all know NEVER to do this!! It has been so difficult! My friend and neighbor, Wendi, has been a huge help... don't know if I could have done this without her. Although she is the reason I could move or breathe for a few days!! lol I think it will be worth it once I'm completely moved; hubby doesn't think so though... do they ever?

Next week, I'm heading to NJ to bring my Mom home with me. This trip is all about seeing family and old high school friends. I probably won't get to stop anywhere crafty unless I get to One Small Spark in Tuckerton while I'm there. This is the cutest little shop and Patricia, the owner, is a wonderful person!

I'll try to set up a couple of posts ahead of time before I go, but not promising anything. I do have one more small project to finish up for the basket. I bought styrofoam eggs that I'm going to sponge paint in a neutral color with some speckling to give it a more natural look. I couldn't figure out what to put in the basket, since it has so much going on aleady. The eggs should look nice without looking like Easter because that's not what it's supposed to be. I'll post pics when I finish it.

Til the next time...

Travel Journal

Hey all... I know I was going to post about organizing your paper, but I got tied up in a project that had been started last week and it's finished so I wanted to share that today instead. The paper post will still be coming this week.

Prima Live, specifically Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, did an online class of this same basic style of Travel Journal with the Prima Madeleine papers. It was totally gorgeous and really needed no additional embellishing like I did because the paper was so stunning! The online classes are recorded and left up on UStream to view at a later time. If you would like to see this class or any others that have been recorded, here is the link to that website: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13165467. The online classes are lots of fun!

The first video is the Travel Journal that I had completed after attending the online class. For me, it was just a "template" so I would know how to make it. Then at a later date, I could get those awesome Prima papers and make another one. I will apologize in advance if the video quality is poor because I was using my regular camera and not a video camera. So this is the very bare looking travel journal BEFORE I prettied it up.  :-)

Now... the more I looked at the journal, the more I thought that I should just go ahead and complete it. I think the paper is by American Crafts and was actually called Road Trip. They aren't the prettiest of papers so I struggled a bit with exactly what to do with it. I really thought it looked kind of boyish in a way. It took me time to go through all my flowers and then my buttons, brads, and ribbon to see what all matched up to my liking. My color scheme ended up being teal (Lolly should love that), red and yellow orange. Because the ribbon I used to keep the journal closed had a different kind of blue in it (along the lines of Ballet Blue from SU), I pulled some of that blue onto the front cover with the flowers and brads. Here is the total completed project. I'm very happy with it and do think I'm actually going to use it when I take my next road trip.

Hugs, Margaret