Bare-foot Sandals and other cottage crafts....

We had such a nice time up at Steve's sisters cottage for the past week and a half. We had a little more rain than we would have liked but that was okay since it left us with some fun time to craft with the kids.

I brought up some metallic glitter pipe-cleaners, some glue and stick-on gems. All you need is a cardboard paper towel tube to make these cute glitter bracelets. Just slit the paper towel tube all the way down the center. then cut a 1" strip. this will make the perfect cuff/bracelet to fit around a child's wrist. Then have the little ones wrap the pipe-cleaners over the cardboard from one end to the other. Glue on the jewels and use a cloths peg to hold them in place until the glue is dry.

I have a ridiculous amount of beads, so I brought up a couple of boxes for the girls to play with. We made these really cute bare-foot sandals for the beach. All you need is some clear stretchy/elastic thread and a variety of beads. You'll need about 30-35" of elastic thread for each foot (less for a child's foot). Start by using seed beads to make the ring to go around the middle toe (I used about 36 seed beads for the toe loop) Then string the two ends through a larger bead to complete the loop. You can use any design leading up to the ankle. You can make a "Y" design like I did on mine, or you can make it a little more simple by just doing a "T" shape like Meagan did for her's. I think it would be fun to experiment with other beads like pearl or shell beads for this too! They're fun to make and the best part is I could almost trick my Mom into thinking that Meagan was actually wearing shoe's!! LOL!....that little monkey would go barefoot in winter if I let her!

Design Team work for August MCS kits!

These are a bunch of the layouts I made with the awesome new kits for August over at My Creative scrapbook http://www.mycreativescrapbook.com/ .....come check us out, really awesome kits and fun forum!! I just wanted to send out a special thankyou to my friend IngridG for letting me use her idea for the stitched blooms that I used on my "Happy Girl" page.

This months kits are so much fun.....there are loads of wonderful chipboard and felt in them.....and the papers in the mini kit are perfect for those summer layouts!.....thanks for having a peek!

~Gabi xx

Locks of Love

That's right, my little Meagan came to me a few weeks ago to tell me that she wanted to cut her long beautiful hair for Locks of Love......now this is a little girl who's had long hair since she could walk, and always refused to even consider cutting her hair....... You can't believe how surprised I was when she suddenly decided to do this. I gave her a couple of weeks to think about it, I wanted to make sure this wasn't a snap decision and that she'd be all upset after. But she was determined!! So off we went to the hair stylist yesterday, she cut off a little over 13 inches!! and still had enough left for a cute 'do'. I think she's really happy with her new 'do' and her mama couldn't be more proud!!

My Scraproom....

Steve put up some slatwall for me on the weekend in my office/scraproom, so I had some fun hanging up a lot of the scrapping goodies I use often. Oh man! it looks like a store in here now!!.....and the downside? now my dear man knows how much stash I REALLY have (heehee, actually I've still got lots socked away!! Here's a few pics of my scrapspace, it's a small room so the pics were hard to take, I kinda had to break it up.....

Love this Little Yellow Bicycle 'Vita Bella' Collection

I've had the opportunity to use some really beautiful papers by the company Little Yellow Bicycle. I was first introduced to their papers when I got some as part of a kit from My Creative Scrapbook (a design team I'm on)....the papers I worked with at that time were the 'Sharon Ann Delightful' collection, a really lovely summery collection (lot's of dotty papers, and I LOVE polka-dots!).....I recently picked up the Vita Bella collection at my LSS and just can't get enough of playing with these papers!! Gorgeous colours, and pretty foil accents on the paper and lot's of fun co-ordinates to go with the collection too. I've posted some of the work I did with them a little earlier in my blogs, but here is another I've recently finished with a bunch of the goodies from that collection! I just love the pretty metal/gem stickers that co-ordinate with the collection!

Looking for a free stitching template?

My Creative Scrapbook has just released their awesome July kits....and boy are they some fun goodies to play with!! Lots of wonderful summery colours!! On one of my DT layouts (Meaganisms) I did a stitched flourish (see close-up in middle photo).....I've done a hand-stitching tutorial along with a free stitching template download that includes the flourish I used on this page and a few extras!! You can get your's at this link http://mycreativescrapbook.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=169&st=0#entry2337 ....and while you are there why don't you join in our July technique challenge!!....the winner will recieve a wonderful prize from My Creative Scrapbook at the end of the month! I can't wait to see some of the creative pages I know you all can come up with!! These are just a couple of the layouts made with this fun kit....check out what the rest of the design team has been up to at the design-team gallery.

New Daisy D's Chloe-Marie Collection

I recently got to play with the new Daisy D's Chloe-Marie collection and all the fun stuff that comes with it, 4 different rub-on sheets, and some awesome co-ordinating sticker and die-cut sheets.......the hardest part? was picking which of the papers were my favourite to work with!!

5 Scrapping Secrets and 5 Cool things

This is the latest page I've been working on.....I just picked up this awesome collection by My Little Yellow Bicycle and couldn't wait to play with the goodies!! .....while I'm here I thought I'd add a little challenge I did at sb.com. Pammy a friend of mine at sb.com challenged a bunch of us to do a list of 5 scrapping secrets and 5 cool things......here's mine!!

5 Scrap Secrets.....

1. Well, I may as well put it here since every second day I'm answering this question for someone! LOL!.....How do I do my scallopes on my pages!....No big fancy gadget, I'm totally old school on that one! I collect anything with a fancy edge and us it as a template and then cut out by hand!....my latest favourite is the Bazzill "Just the Edge" pieces....a package full of cool edges to use as templates...and since there are 2 in a pack, I can use one of each as a permanent template and the others for scrapping!

2. I don't have a corner punch.....but an easy way to get even rounded corners is to turn your photo or matting over and use a dime to draw a perfect round ...then cut it out!

3. I have a great place I like to go to find quotes and poems and fun titles for my layouts....hhmmmm, should I share????.....okay...it's http://www.dennydavis.net/ check it out if you ever need just the right quote for a page or have trouble thinking up a good title for a theme page!

4. I'm often asked what do I use to make the circle's in my layouts..... again, none of the expensive circle cutting tools....heehee, I reserve my funds for the newest blooms, papers, and bling LOL!!!....I use a circle template by Crafters workshop, I simply draw out the circle the size I'm looking for and hand cut.....easy peasy!

5. Another question I'm often asked is 'how do you do such perfect hand stitches'......what I do is....for example on my 'She..." page......I drew out the circle I was going to hand stitch....then I put a soft foam mat underneath my layout (you can use the mats you use under stamping, or even a foam of rubber bottom mouse pad)....then I take the needle and poke even holes along the pencil line. Then when I take my needle and thread it is easy to get perfect uniform stitches.

5 Cool Things

1. I just love my Quickutz Revolution and die-cut alpha's.....always handy for DT work when you didn't get some alpha's to go with the kit.....also you never run out of vowels or the popular consonents anymore!
2. I recently tried the Bo Bunny pink flex ruler.....awesome for making a nice even wave on your page!!....I used to draw and redraw a wave for my pages....but with this ruler you just keep flexing the ruler till you have the wave exactly the way you want it, then simly draw it onto your patterned paper. (again, you can see the item below).
3. One Item I almost never scrap without is my Colorbox chalk ink in the colour 'chestnut' ....it always seems to make the edges of my patterned paper pop more and adds a certain warmth to the page.
4. And I have got to say I just LOVE rub-ons.....my absolute favourite? Daisy d's for sure!!!.....love the white and black combination rub-ons.....they always add that little extra to a page.
5. Another favourite product is any of the Prima bling flourishes!!! I just can't get enough of those!!

Awesome Acrylic Album and a cure for Autism

A dear, dear friend of my Krissy, has designed this awesome clear acrylic album shaped like a puzzle called Mason's Puzzle, named after her sweet little boy. A portion of the proceeds will go to a great charity working toward a cure for autism. Have a look, it's for a very worthy cause and the product itself RAWKS!!! http://myacrylicalbum.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=22

my recent work