Sneaky-peeks!!! For December's My Creative Scrapbook kits!

I don't usually do this but there is so much to see for Decembers kits over at My Creative Scrapbook I thought I'd share a few little peeks to get the excitement going! Here are a couple of little peeks from some of the pages I made up with the December Limited Edition kit (Reveal day is December 5th....kits will go up for viewing then)....




I also worked with the Album kit this time around and there were so many lovely papers and goodies in this one too....here are a couple of sneak-peeks....

To see some sneak-peeks for the Main kit check out the sneaks Robbie put up of all the design teams work with this kit HERE

To see all the sneaks for the Creative Kit click HERE

To see all the sneaks for the Limited Edtion kit click HERE

To see all the sneaks for the Album Kit click HERE

I'll be back to post the full pages and lots of tips and more close-ups on the 5th of December, reveal day!

Thanks for taking a peek!

~Gabrielle xxx

Meagan's Special Week

Once or sometimes twice a year each of the children in Meagan's class are chosen to be 'Super Eleve' .....that's French for Super Student. Meagan and Chloe are both in French Immersion School. So I thought I'd do up a special page just for Meagan in honour of her special week. Behind the photo I put a tag with things about Meagan (favourites.....foods, movies etc. and about her family) all written in French.

I used some gorgeous papers by Bo Bunny for this l/o called Snowy Serenade! You have to see these in real life, so glittery and pretty! I also added lots of bling from Zva Creative. The flourishes coming from the butterfly and flowers are some of their newest collections.....as are the little pearl daisies in the bloom cluster. Here are some close-ups of the l/o.....

Thanks for taking a peek!

~Gabrielle xxx

Got my l/o Pubbed in Scrapbooking & Beyond Magazine!!

I was so happy to get my Winter 2009 issue of Scrapbooking & Beyond Magazine yesterday! This is the l/o I got pubbed as a fourth installment to a series of articles on flourishes called 'A Flourish for all Seasons' I along with my friends Liz Qualman, Robbie Herring and Debbie Danielson completed this series with layouts done with paper flourishes. I decided to go with jewel tones for this winter l/o and used some fun paper flourishes I bought at an etsy site Niklindesigns1225.etsy.com. I used one of my favourite paper lines from Cosmo Cricket and some pearl adhesives and rhineston title letters from Zva Creative. Here are some close-up pic's.....

And another happy surprise was that when I opened my box from Scrapbooking & Beyond I saw the cute smiling face of my dear friend Liz's daughter smiling up at me! Liz Qualman got the cover of the magazine! Congrats Liz!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Gabrielle xxx

Kanzashi Bloom Tutorial!! Fun handmade Fabric Blooms!!

I've been loving some of the fabric blooms I've seen coming out by my favourite manufacturers and thought I would show everyone how to make some wonderful blooms made from fabric scraps or ribbon pieces.

Kanzashi blooms are an ancient technique used by the Geisha girls in Japan. They would use left over scraps from their beautiful outfits to make these pretty fabric flowers for their hair and clothing. Above are some samples of blooms I made up using scraps of fabric and some cut ribbon pieces.

ROUND PETAL TECHNIQUE (See White bloom above)

Step 1 ~ Cut a square of fabric in the size you need for your project. I like to use pieces in sizes of 1" square up to 3" square for scrapbook pages.


Step 2 ~ Fold your square in half diagonally leaving the 'good' side of the fabric on the outside (bad side inside the fold)


Step 3 ~ With fold at the top of the triangle bring down point 'A' to point 'B'


Step 4 ~ Now do the same for the right side, bring down right side to meet in the middle, then flip the project over, you will have the folded edge at the top of the project


Step 5 ~ Keeping the folded edges at the top and raw edges at the bottom, fold in the right and left points to meet in the middle


Step 6 ~ Now bring both edges together again, essentially folding your project in half. Your finished petal will be the back edge of this fold (you will see 3 folded edge, this is the front of the petal)


Step 7 ~ As mentioned above the front of the petal is the edge with the 3 folds, you will round out the top of the petal to give it it's shape. Secure each petal with a pin or with a couple of small stitches (I prefer to use a couple of small stitches as it's easier to put the bloom together later if you're not fiddling with the extra pins)


Step 8 ~ Trim away extra fabric (below your stitch or pin)


Finishing your Bloom (Step 9)

With a need and thread string together all of the petals and tie off creating a ring (the less petals you use for your blooms the more fiddling it may take to create your circle of petals) I used 7 petals to make up the white bloom with the pearl centers. Add pearl or crystal beeds, metal pieces, crystal stickers, flower stamens, buttons.....whatever you like for centers to your blooms.


Here is a finished picture of a rounded petal bloom



Basic Pointed tip Kanzashi bloom Tutorial



Step 1 ~ Cut out several square pieces of fabric or ribbon (I used 6 pieces of 2" fabric for the above bloom.


Step 2 ~ Fold fabric in half diagonally ...good side of fabric on the outside....


Step 3 ~ With fold at the top of the triangle, fold in half again, bringing left side point to right side point.


Step 4 ~ You will now have 2 folds at the top. Bring down the right point to the bottom. Do the same with the other point except in the opposite direction.


Step 5 ~ You will now have 2 folded edges on the right side again. Bring this edge to the main middle fold (basically folding the flap in half)....do the same for the opposite side.


Step 6 ~ This is your completed pointed petal. It will look like the photo below on one side. It can be used like this for pointed petals (this also works very well for leaves). Finish off by securing with a couple stitched or a pin. Trim as shown in the diagrams for the rounded petal technique)


Step 7 ~ If you flip this petal over you will get a ruffled looking petal as show in the photo below......


Step 8 ~ Put petals together using the instructions above in the rounded petals technique. The example you see at the top of this tutorial shows a flower made using the backside of the pointed leaf. Below is a sample of a flower I made using the front side of the pointed petal technique (the orange petals)......I layered a smaller bloom made with the rounded petal design on top of it.


So if you have some pretty fabric scraps you've been saving or some wonderful ribbon, give this technique a go! The above bloom was made using sheer organza ribbons.

It's really quite easy to do once you've given the technique a try, my 11 year old daughter made this wine colour bloom using some sheer ribbon.


Experiment with different types of fabric.....I've seen this done with cotton, organza, silk, satin, linen and even with felted wool.....each giving a different effect.

During the holiday season there are so many shimmery, velvety pretty ribbons out there to experiment with!

Use on your scrapbook pages or even attach to hair combs or clips. Above all have fun with it!

~Gabrielle xxx

It's that time again!! Here are the November Kits from MY CREATIVE SCRAPBOOK!!

I'll admit it.....getting the beautiful kits from My Creative Scrapbook in the mail each month never gets old for me!! I've been doing design team work for MCS for about a year and a half now and each month as I'm anticipating the kits coming, the stalking of the mailman starts! LOL!! And when they get here, the girls and I spend a wonderful half hour just ooohhhing and awwwing over all the pretties in the kits!

This months Main kit features so many beautiful papers by Teresa Collins and is packed with gorgeous blooms and embellishments! Above is one of the layouts I made with the main kit. I used a quote that a friend (and member at MCS) shared with us in the galleries (thanks Pearl!! aka 'paperfections') As I'm now in my 40's, I sometimes hear that women should wear their hair shorter at this age.....I just loved this quote and had to use it since I like having my hair long and want to keep it this way for a while yet......

"They say......

A woman of my age should not let her hair

Fall below the marks of her shoulder,

It will bring her face down and make her look older.

But I say.....

A woman of my age should let her hair grow,

When it gets too long I think she will know.

A woman of my age is secure and finally sure of herself,

She does not long to be nineteen, but neither is she ready for the shelf."

This kit also had wonderful blooms, loads of bling and gorgeous trims in it!

TIP: If the colour of the rhinstones are not the exact colour you need for the page you are working on, they can be easily tinted with alcohol inks or copic markers. For this page I tinted my rhinestones a turquois colour.

Here are some close-up pic's......

Here is another layout I made using Main kit from My Creative Scrapbook. For this l/o I used the black/cream/pink colours in the kit. Pam had put out a challenge at MCS to do layouts with more that one photo. This is a big challenge for me, as I tend to use only one or two pic's on my l/o's. I found this series of fun pic's of the girls playing in their Opa's backyard a few years ago and gave the multiple photo challenge a try......

Everything I used to make this page is included in the kit, no need for extra 'add-on' kits all embellies are included. The pink rose blossom in the midde of the larger pink bloom is a bloom I made myself out of cardstock, you can see the tutorial for this at the tips & techniques section at My Creative Scrapbook or click on this link Quilled Rose Tutorial

TIP: This kit has these wonderful glittery black border strips in it, I used one of them to create the partial circle design in the above l/o. Lightly draw out the circle with a pencil and then follow the outline with the shimmery strip, they will bend slightly to accommodate the circle design. I used the pink rhinestones included in the kit to make the diamond pattern within the circle. Here are some close-up pictures.......

And here is a 3rd layout I made this month with the November Main kit, the photo is of my youngest daughter (I've always admired her beautiful thick lashes).....

Pam did such a wonderful job matching up beautiful embellishments to these papers....the Prima bling, the gorgeous Petalloo sheer blooms where so much fun to use.
TIP: I added some pink glitter dots to the sheer blooms (Stickles) to add some extra punch to the blooms. The turquoise blooms I punched from cardstock using the EK Success Retro Daisy punches. I just added some black ink to the edges and some turquois glitter dots to finish them off. Here are some close-up photo's.....

Another QUICK TIP: ......I used some gold dimensional paint to make the 'Gem Border' on the circle lace paper and filled them in with some turquoise glitter glue and pearlized 3D paint. Also I made the faux 'buttons' on the left edge of the photo by punching out 3 circles from the patterned paper and then lightly inking the edges to get a rounded look to them, I then cut 3 slightly larger circles out and used the metalic copper paint on these to get the metal edge button look. I didn't have a circle punch that is slightly larger than the smaller circle so I used a light tack tape on the back of the circles, laid them on the cardstock and cut a thin edge around the circle, then removed the larger circle, painted with metalic paint and then re-attached the smaller circles with stronger adhesive.

Another wonderful kit I had the privilege of working with this month is the November LIMITED EDITION Kit (LE kit).....this one was just packed with gorgeous Prima Papers, blooms by the tons! and wonderful rub-ons, trims and chipboard alpha's! Here is the first page I made with this kit....

I just LOVED the big batch of pretty Hydrangia blossoms that came with this kit. I used the light and dark pink ones to make this page. There is also an intricate chipboard frame included in the kit, I painted mine white and added a light pink pearl finish to it.
TIP: Let the patterned paper you are working with inspire the design elements on your pages. For this layout I noticed that one of the patterned papers had this 'drip' design on it, so I used the same design on my page, I drew out these long drops from the tiny pink blooms and again used this design for my hand-dran flourishes around the bloom clusters. I then finished it all off with a tiny drop of pearl pink 3D paint. Here are some close-up pics.....


A second l/o I made for the LE kit is this one called Breathe (I know it says 'Breath' but silly me didn't realize I had to add an 'e' at the end to get the word Breathe until after I finished the l/o, lol!)......

I just loved the newsprint alpha's included in this kit! I also used the kaki colour hydrangia blooms mixed with the Prima Camelot roses (also from the kit) to make up the bloom clusters. The tiny pink roses on the edges of my page were again made from carstock using the quilling technique (see above link).....Here are some close-up pic's .....


The butterflies were made from the cute sheer blue butterfly/ribbon trim included in the kit, I simply added a variety of glitter glue colours to them to dress them up.

And finally here is the 3rd l/o I made using the November LE kit. This is a photo I took of Meagan's first day of school this year....

One of the specialty papers in this kit is a Prima Stitched paper! I just love the feel of these papers, they almost feel like fabric and they have beautiful stitches already sewn onto them.

Also included in this kit is a fun beaded ribbon/trim. I used some of the beads from this trim to make up my beaded 'spray' that I added to my flower clusters. I simply wound some fine copper wire through the beads twisting the wire as I go to make this page element. To see tips on great ways to attache these to a page at the Tips & Techniques thread at MCS or click this link Attaching Vines

There are also two other wonderful kits available for November at My Creative Scrapbook, there is the Creative Kit and the Album kit. I didn't take on the design team work this month for those kits as I'm still dealing with the pinched nerve issue effecting my shoulder/left arm and I needed to keep my work down to a minimum. But please do take a moment to check out the beautiful work done by the rest of the design team girls and the Guest Designers this month at the MCS Design Team Gallery! We had the wonderfully talented Lynn Biermann as one of our guest designers this month as well as the equally talented Delaina Burns working alongside with us.....it was a delight working with these ladies!!

Thanks for having a peek!!

~Gabrielle xxx