She Blooms {NEW Maja Design ~ Sofiero Collection} PLUS a Bloom Tutorial!!

 

I'm so excited today to share with you my first project that I made with the NEW 'Sofiero' collection by Maja Design!  I'm just a total sucker for pink when scrapping and the gorgeous blooms in the Sofiero papers totally made me reach for this photo of my oldest daughter Chloe.  We like to pick bouquets of blooms from our garden on Fridays so that the house looks and smells pretty for the weekend.  I love Spring and early Summer because we have lot's of 'picking' flowers in our garden at this time of year.  The peonies she picked that day were not only beautiful but the scent! Lovely!

 

 

The papers that I used from the Sofiero collection are....Strolling Down the Rose Path, Enjoy the Fragrance-bs (Don't you just LOVE the pretty names of these papers!!).  I also combined these with some accents from two other collections - (1922-bs from the Vintage Summer Basics, as matting for my photos, and Den oersättliga tiden from Crea Diem....love the clock images!)

 

I cut out some of the clock images, edged them with some Platinum Stickles and tucked them around my photos.  For the larger clock image I created a delicate frame design using a cute little corner flourish die (Lace Corner Deco B -B162) I got from Cheery Lynn Designs.  I just layered them around the clock edge creating a doily effect.  I also used some of the lacy corners in the outermost corners of the layout.

 

You'll also notice the fun textured writing design I put behind my photos and embellishments.  I just love the scripted writing bits that Marie  (the talented owner/designer of Maja Design) incorporates into her paper designs so I wanted to mirror this with some masking and texture paste.  I used my home-made texture paste recipe ( this can be found on the right column of my blog under my tutorials) and a new Crafter's Workshop mask I picked up over the weekend.  Did I mention that I found this AMAZING Art/Mixed Media/Scrapstore not 5 minutes from my place!!  Finnabiar (Anna Dabrowska) was having a class there over the weekend and one of my online scrapfriends was attending and mentioned it to me!  I wasn't able to attend the class because of family coming to visit but I was able to duck out and meet my friend Avril for a coffee after the class.  I stopped by the shop and was so tickled to find this amazing shop so close by!  Loads of wonderful scrap goodies and mixed media supplies to be had there.  The store/workshop is called The Art House Studio, for those of you who live close to Cambridge it's well worth a visit... and for those of you who don't, she also has an online store, and I hear the shipping rates are great!  I was able to pick up all sorts of masks I've been wanting and I'll for sure be back for some of those mixed media goodies I've got my eye on! :)   ....Did I mention that I got to meet Anna as well?  She is such a cutie-pie, so very sweet to everyone!  And seeing her work, in real life? Gorgeous!

 

 

Okay....so getting back on topic again, lol!  I wanted to have some soft fabric blooms for this one so I ended up making these blooms myself.  I saw a tutorial a while back on making these fabric blooms but it was in another language and I slightly altered the bloom with different centers.  So rather than linking to the site, I thought I'll just take pic's of my flower as I make it and share the design here with you all.

Gathered Fabric Bloom Tutorial

 

Cute aren't they?  And as you can see, quit easy to make!  I just used some scrap fabric I had from an old pink blouse I had been cutting up to make blooms.

 

To finish up my page I added a few of my Dusty Attic chippies (Corner flourish #3, Rose Vine, Bird Houses), again simply treated with some Gesso, random stamping and some Dusty Attic Crackle Varnish.

 

I hope you enjoyed today's project and I hope you give this bloom tutorial a try!  I'd love to hear how your's came out.  And for those of you who have been writing to me asking 'Where can I find Maja Design papers??"  ....Good news!  More and more retailers on our side of the world are now carrying these beautiful collections.  Here are just a couple of the retailers that let me know that they now have them in stock....

The Scrapbook Diaries

Stay True to God

 

To find a retailer near you, you can check out the 'Store Finder' at the Maja Design Website.

Technique Tuesday with Bo Bunny! Felt Bloom Tutorial!!

 I recently got this really sweet photo of my 2 great nieces from my nephew and wanted to create a layout that feels as warm and cozy as those cute little knit hats the girls are wearing. So here are my tips/techniques for creating a soft and cozy page.

~ Use soft color palette (here I used a soft pink, grey and tan)
~ Decorating with soft fabric blooms (here I used Bo Bunny's crochetted blooms and made some felt roses ...see a brief tutorial below to make these)
~ Add textural fabric elements (here I used some burlap, and paper lace as well as some crochetted lace) to give the page a homespun feel.
~ Add buttons and machine stitching, it's a quick way to give a page a soft fabric look. And don't forget the little details like tying some kitchen twine through the button holes, it gives a nice finish to the flower centers.

 

Here are a few close-ups of my page... 



 

 

The cute chipboard piece above is a new one from Dusty Attic called Wattle Blossom and the chipboard piece across the bottom is from the Wrought Iron Border Set.

 

Along with the soft and pretty Bo Bunny blossoms I used on my page I also thought I'd play a bit with felt to make blooms.  I got my felt pieces very inexpensively at a local fabric store at 3 x 10"square pieces for a dollar!  And you can get loads of blooms out of one piece!  I used a paper technique with the felt and it worked really well, the felt almost holds itself together without the glue (but do use a little hot glue to secure it! lol)  Here are some steps to make them, these are SUPER-FAST!!





 

 

Supplies:

Patterned Paper - Powder Mountain Flakes
Cardstock - Tutu Double Dot
Noteworthy - Powder Mountain
Stickers - Powder Mountain
Buttons - Serenity, Welcome Home
Stamps - Midnight Frost
Flowers - Blush Dahlia, Blush Bouquet

 

 I hope you give the blooms a try! They are super easy to do, and really really fast!!