Buttons!

Boy, do I have quite a supply of buttons! I have a bucketful from dear Grandma and can't pass up vintage buttons at a good price, or new buttons from any of the great scrapbooking manufacturers like American Crafts, Basic Grey, and Bazzill.

Sooooo, why not start a button challenge?! Check out the September challenge HERE. Join in if you can! Random RAK pulled at the end of the month!

Here's my first layout for the challenge:



No - I did not distress or chalk my layout - that's my dang scanner. The basic design was based on this ad I had saved on my hard drive - probably from the 2peas ad challenge:



and the buttons were all random buttons pulled from my little blue button jar:




i have a bunch of these glass jars for my buttons - each for only a buck at Pier One.

thanks for stopping by and have a creative week!

betsy

Little Elfin Creature and Template Magic

While on vacation in Rhode Island I happened in this great brick and mortar gift store, Mills Creek, with lots of handmade crafts.

So much great stuff to look at and I loved these great little kits from Artgirlz. It appears the very creative Artgirlz live very close to where we vacation. Lucky us! I bought a little kit to make this whimsical elfin-like creature pin. You get a lot of stuff in the kit, and boy, would I have LOVED to sew beads on this baby to my hearts content, but my hands just don't work the way they used to and detail work is really hard (makes me nuts). So after three beads, I had to stop. Oh, and all I had to sew with on vacation was black thread, but hey, that's OK.

But I did my best, did my own thing, and came up with this cute little lady:



The best part was the look on the face of ds#1 when I showed him this little guy and he looked at me and said incredulously, "You MADE this?" and a big smile came over his face I think because he knows mom used to do this stuff all the time and it's just been so very hard these past 6 months and just maybe - just maybe - this little elfin creature was a little bit of the "old mom" coming through.

Had the great fortune to work with Studio Hillary templates again over at Scrapbookgraphics.com. I did my hybrid stuff using a couple of her templates in her new release. There's a great bundle from Hillary going on sale TODAY!



Used some new American Crafts patterned paper from their Halloween line - yes, not just for Halloween! The flowered pattern is an oldie, but goodie from AC. Also Heidi Swapp credit card embellies and chipboard letters.



Used Little Yellow Bicycle from their Traveler's Collection (LOVE THIS), and a Heidi Swapp chipboard piece (from an old QVC show). The 1-2-3 numbers are a Studio Hillary product, Sundisk Numerals! Being released today!

Be sure to check out the newly released bundle at Studio Hillary on Scrapbookgraphics.com.

thanks for visiting and have a creative week! - betsy

Finding Great Color Combos and JBS and a Blog Giveaway

So . . . I've switched up my blog again, trying to find some colors I like. It's actually a fun and relaxing thing to be doing at 2am! I found a pretty cool way to pick great color combinations online and I plan on using this in my scrapbooking, too!

I searched Art.com for a piece of artwork I liked, opened it up in PSE, and used the eyedropper-color picker-thing to use the exact colors from the artwork on my blog.

For example, the colors on my blog right now, are all taken from this piece of artwork from
Don Li Leger on the website:



I got such a kick out of this (easily amused?) that I used another piece of lovely artwork by Stefania Ferri:





for my Etsy logo:



You can bet that I do some of this on my next digi project!

On another subject:

For the past couple of months I've posted some of my Jenni Bowlin layouts on her Jenni Bowlin Mercantile Customer Gallery and I was recently asked if I'd like to be part of a customer spotlight. It was a blast and you can see it here. You can be next! It's tons of fun and you get stuff to play with! Post to the gallery and give it a try!

And check out this blog giveaway on Pam's blog right here: Pamela's World of Scrap
Jeepers that's a lot of stuff!

Thanks for reading and have a creative week! - betsy

Rainy Vacation Day

Well, we got outside when the going was good, but it's turned rainy this afternoon. Thought I'd see if I could make a blog post from dh's ol' lap top.


I hit a flea market today - don't think I can post pics yet - no wire - but it was a blast seeing a flea market while taking Jenni Bowlin's BPS class. I did pick up some scrapworthy stuff - I'll post next week - and I may have gotten enough very pretty buttons and cool vintage sequins to put some in my etsy when we get back. All for charity!

Here are some of the projects I've done for the class:


We were challenged to create something with milk caps we were sent. The colors reminded me of this old pic of ds#1 I've wanted to scrap:








Then we were challenged to use these little Dennison labels. Once again, another layout - this one 8x8 - for ds#1. An old Poloroid. DS#1 is a senior in HS in the fall, so I'm scrapping pics of him like crazy!




We also created an inspiration board and add something every week. Here's mine so far:

Speaking of Jenni Bowlin . . . have you seen the sample layouts from her new to be released August kit? Look here: Jenni Bowlin Mercantile This is one kit DT that blows me away with their talent every month! Incredible, really!

Have creative week!