Summer Frame of Mind

Hi everyone!

Wow, it's been a while.  I've been pretty busy with several things all at once - some paper related, some not.  I'll be posting as much as I can over the next few days to get you all caught up.

I'm going to begin with the project I finished most recently.  Michaels offers a class called Paper Crafted Gift Frame.  This class was first constructed for Christmas.  Sporting the word "JOY", the background papers were the traditional Christmas colors of red, green, and white.  Obviously, I didn't want to put something related to Christmas out on the store floor at this time of the year.  I'm also kind of beyond spring right now - I'm kind of done with the flowers, chicks, and lace.  So, I opted for a summer theme.  Those of you who know me will smile because I've gone with a beach theme - and I love the beach.

Unfortunately, because this is a class that Michaels offers, I'm bound by their public relations policies, so I can't show you this piece in its entirety.  If you live near me, it's on display at the store and you can check it out back in the frames department.

• The flowers, some trim, and tag are handmade using paper from the "Four Seasons" pad by Die Cuts With a View.  I LOVE this pad and plan to use every bit of it - not something that happens with every pad of paper I buy, trust me.  
• The solid colors of paper are French Vanilla, Avalanche, and Turquoise Mist by Bazzill.  
• I sketched in the seagrass using three different shades of yellow green markers by Copic.  I borrowed one of them from the store, so I can't give you the number for that one, but the other two are YG93 and YG95. 
•  The tag is hand lettered using a brown Zig marker.  
• The punch is Martha Stewart's Punch Around the Page in Deco Fan.  
• The large letters were cut on the Cricut Expressions machine using the Jubilee Celebration cartridge.  I think this was a promotional cartridge that was given away last fall with the purchase of two other cartridges.  I couldn't find it on the Cricut site, so if you find it somewhere, please correct me.  :)
• The frame is a 14" x 8" (I think) float frame from Michaels.  It comes in black, but I painted it because - ya know - it needed to be kind of beachy.  :)
• Paints on the frame are by Martha Stewart.  They're Beach Glass and Porcelain Doll in the satin base.    It took several coats of the Beach Glass paint to cover the black, but I love how the frame turned out.  I brushed the Porcelain Doll paint on as a very, very light topcoat.

Sorry for the size and fuzziness of this one, but I cropped it so as not to show too much.  The seashells came from the DCWV pad that I listed above.  I just cut them out and adhered them to a trim strip made of papers and punches that I also listed above.

The word down the middle of the project is "breathe".  I always seem to relax and breathe at the beach - something about that great, uninterrupted expanse of beach and water....

Remember to breathe....

Kathy

Summery sample

Hey there, everyone!

Sorry it's been a few days.  Sometimes life gets in the way...  :)

Michaels is having their annual Open House on Saturday, March 3 from 1:00 - 3:00.  This event showcases the talents of the instructors at Michaels, giving them an opportunity to display their samples of the Michaels curriculum.  Since our store is so new, none of us have samples from past years to draw on, so it's a bit frenzied as we all work to create some spectacular samples for our customers' viewing pleasure.

Not only are we working to make samples, we are also working to make story boards - kind of a portable bulletin board display listing our class offerings.  Some of our samples will be posted on the story boards; some will be displayed on tables.

I am the scrapbook instructor, of course, but the beading, knitting/crocheting, fine arts, and cake making instructors will be there as well.  I'm really excited about spending a couple of hours with my fellow instructors and sharing our crafting enthusiasm with prospective students.

Yesterday, I set out to knock out a few more samples.  I'm very particular about my finished samples, so I put a little extra time into them.  For that reason, I didn't get as many samples done as I would've liked, but I'm pleased with what I finished.

Die Cuts With a View (DCWV) has a stack of papers called Four Seasons.  I picked that up last week because the summer pages really caught my eye and I wanted to play with them.  I picked up two sets, in fact.  One for store use and....one for ME!  :)

I love the country, cheerful, sunniness of these two pages.


So, this is how my day started out:

You'll see a lot of my basic tools in that picture - Tim Holtz's ruler, my Cutterbee detail scissors (LOVE those!), my Fiskars corner rounder punch and one of Martha Stewarts' Punch Around the Page sets.  The other bits and pieces are the logos to put on my story boards.

One other picture of note:

When I'm in "the zone", intense on my work, I tend to set up a semi-circle.  Oh - there's my Recollections paper trimmer.  :)

After four hours of creative fun....

Voila!  I really liked how this turned out - it's so me!  Unfortunately, I don't usually scrap in the 12 x 12 format, so I wouldn't do one of these for personal use.  I might, however, replicate it on a smaller scale for one of my books.....  Stay tuned....  :)

Kathy