Giftwrap Summer Garden Notebook

Hello Bloglanders

Happy Sunday to you all!!

Today I have a covered notebook to share:

Even though it's winter down under in Sunny SA, I got so inspired with the SimonSaysStamp Monday Challenge "Summer Garden" that I just had to get into the vibe.

You know me - LOTS of notebooks on my desk and in my pressie stash. It is SO easy just to add a funky pen / pencil and you have a beautiful, homemade present. No need for a lot of wrapping - just a glassine envelope and a bit of twine and you're ready to go - no use hiding all that beautiful stuff.

For this one I used butterfly wrapping paper to cover an ordinary notebook. Added a doily, some die cuts, stamping and scraps from my stash and it's ready to go. Even the title was die cut from glitter foam - nothing shop bought here!!

And a bit closer:

I LOVE to "sign" and date all my projects, This one got it on the back:

And I'm already using my brand new Summer Garden Notebook!!

With one roll of cheap wrapping paper I've covered numerous pressies, made this notebook, a planner page and a travel journal (it's coming in another post) and there's some more left. Here you can see a bit more of the beautiful print on the wrapping paper.

It's  really hard to get good scrapping supplies down under in Sunny SA. If I buy, I normally order online all the way from the USA. SimonSaysStamp is most definitely my FAVE shop and their shipping is the most affordable out there. Believe it or not but most shops don't even want to ship to South Africa!!  Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I tend to spend my money on dies, stamps and ink as they are rather Light and therefor cheap to ship. Then I look around for cheaper paper and art options locally.

So far it's working very, very well for me. If you are short of cash or living down under somewhere - just follow my example and use stuff that's already out there and available. Most of the time it's free!!!

That's it!! I hope you enjoyed my gift wrap Summer Garden Notebook as much as I have.

Have a GREAT week and please check back. I'm working on my VERY FIRST video EVER. It still needs some tweaking but it will hopefully be up before the weekend. You don't want to miss out as I'll show the inside of this travel journal that I've featured in my previous post. Once again, all supplies from my scrap stash and the local office supply shop.

Just scroll down or click here.

Bye, have FUN and thanks for looking at my bloggie.

Multi Media Layout

Hello Bloglanders

I know you don't like to see layouts on my blog but I'm rather proud of myself for doing this one.  In my quest to try new things, to use my stash and not to buy things that will gather dust, I ticked all the boxes here:

I used acrylic paint for the background - only 4 colours in my stash - white, yellow, blue and gold - so I used them!! The butterflies were leftovers from my craft session with my little friend Alexa. I told you all about it here. I used the negative from the butterfly die cut to paint the gold butterflies and the poem is a die cut on vinyl that I adapted for my purpose. Definitely not perfect, but it works for me.

For those of you who can't understand my journaling, it's all about my focus for the month "the best things in life are not things." (DINGE = THINGS) I've used gold glitter foam for the "DINGE". I've had it in my stash for some time but never used it and then I saw this post - now I'm hooked!!

I've got some errands to run so, thanks for looking and have a great day! I'll be back .......................

As free as a Butterfly

Hello

Happy day to you all!!  First up: My submission for the MME challenge "Let Freedom Ring". Well, down under in Sunny SA we don't do independence day, I couldn't find any suitable paper in my MME stash so off I went to Pinterest. And this is what I did:

As my home language is Afrikaans, I translated my quote from this (ex Pinterest):

Every month I try to focus on something and this is for July 2014. The best things in life aren't things and best of all - most of them are free for all. Thinking like that makes me feel free from worldly goods and  enjoy the preciousness of health, the love of my family and living life to its fullest.

For my project, I used a die cut from the Silhouette store for my frame and did the letters in vinyl except for the "DINGE" - I cut them out of glitter foam. The red flourish came from glitter foam as well and the flowers are offcuts from Silhouette printable canvas.  I added a bit of ink to the edges and a sparkly brad from the MME's "Lost and Found 3"  range.

My papers are rather old. I bought them from a close down sale at an online shop. The red check comes from the "Miss Caroline" range and the black and cream flowers from "Lush".

As promised yesterday, my Beady Butterflies:

This is an OLD project. Yes, ex 2005 when my boy's class  had to host the metric farewell. The theme was woody wonderland and our butterflies went on the menu's.  They were printed on green vellum, rolled around a glass vase and inside was an tea light. We glued the butterflies on randomly.  It looked magical!!!

How did we do it?? We used transparency to cut butterfly shapes, glass liner and paint to decorate and once again - beads for the bodies.   Every day after school about 10 boys used to sit around our dining room table making butterflies. They made 500!!! You see ........................ the memory is priceless and doesn't cost a thing.

These three little beauties in my photo are on my craft room window but you can also glue them back to back onto fishing line. It makes a GREAT mobile. And apparently the liner and paint never dries as mine (ex 2005) is still usable.  

There you have it. Something old, something new. Thanks for looking at my blog today and please check back as I have lots more to share right here on Play as U Go.

Whimsy Dimensional Butterflies

Hello Bloglanders

Last week I promised to show the dimensional embellishments I made from my scraps but never got round to blogging about it.  At the bottom of my post I will explain how my scrap stash works (for those of you you want the inside info).  Important thing is that I keep all pieces smaller than 3x4 in a plastic tub, die cut it into shapes (good old Bug) and use them for dimensional embellishments, cards, on presents, tags, layouts or my PL pages.

Here is a card made with one of my butterfly embellishments:

My inspiration came from the Simon Wednesday Challenge, "Let's be clear".  Can you see the vellum wings and the sparkly beads??

I love to give them "beady bodies". Now, I'm not a "beader" but I do a lot of sewing and other crafts. All the leftover beads go into a mason jar and gets recycled into butterfly bodies or embellishments on sewing / craft projects. I took pictures to show exactly how I make my beady butterfly bodies:

And, the family:

Normally, I keep all my embellishments in a plastic tub and add them to projects when needed. Mostly, I use flowers / butterflies / stars and hearts so these are the ones I make. I shared how I do my scrap flowers here. And this is what they look like when used on gifts:

Last but not least - my card for a "welcome to our neighborhood" pressie:

Tomorrow I'll be back with another "beady butterfly" - you'll never believe the twist in this story!! Thanks for looking at my blog today. See you tomorrow.

Inside Info: My scrap stash works like this: 12x12 in separate holders one for each colour - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black & white, naturals. Same with printed cardstock. I do have one extra - various colours. I do keep my fave brands together in collections and kits stays together until I've done a layout, a double page PL spread and a multimedia project.

I sort all leftovers to sizes A4, A5, 6x4, 3x4 and 4x4 into plastic tubs (tub for each size). I arrange the paper by colour - once again - red to naturals but I keep them all together by size.

OK, I'll take pics when I work with the tubs again ........................................ what I actually wanted to show today is that anything smaller than 3x4 goes into a box, gets die cut, packed in a cupcake tin.

Butterfly Multi Media

Good morning Bloglanders

On Sunday I told you about the Multi Media adventure Alexa and I had and showed her pic. Well, today it's my turn. I haven't been to my Multi Media book this whole year!!! Rather late than sorry so out she came and this is my effort for July 2014:

Once again I used my Silhouette and the "print and cut" function for the butterflies. The file is from Wilna Furstenberg's shop (iheartstudio) and I painted on watercolor paper with acrylic paint. Once again, the inspiration came from one of Wilna's video's - not that mine looks ANYTHING like hers - IMPERFECT ME!!!!

And a peek into my book:

I'm not sure if I will add more journaling to the pages but for the moment I like it as it is. The letters for my title was die cut with my good old Bug from glitter foam. 

I like things lined up, squares that are perfect squares and so I can go on. Not that it turns out like that every time but I have to brace myself and just leave it when something does not go according to plan. That's what I love about Multi Media. It seems that the more that go wrong, the more creative the project.

That's it. I'm off to try something new. Thanks for looking at my blog and have a great day!

PS. DROOM = DREAM

Back to my Bug???? (or NOT???)

Hi there Bloglanders

I can't believe that this week has come and gone.  I've spent some time getting to know my new Silhouette but as I have bags of scraps, my Cuttlebug and shape punches is out to cut some useful shapes and reduce the scrap pile. This is the one thing I don't like about the Silhouette - maybe I just haven't figured it out yet but I try not to cut cardstock smaller than 6x4. And as promised, I want to show you that if you are a "bugger" or even cut by hand, you can still try my projects.

And to proof my point - here I've used the same idea - triple butterflies with HETTE (click here if you missed it) on the left and ones done with my BUG on the right.

What I did like about the Silhouette is that I could alter the size of my butterfly with the click of a button.  With a die cut, you first have to get hold of the die and if you want different sizes it will cost a pretty penny. Also, I think I'll do 100 with the Silhouette in the time it would have taken me to do 10 by hand. So far HETTE has been worth every penny I  spent on her.

And back to this beauty. She is flying away this evening on a birthday card.  I just love the flowers - making a wintry day in Sunny SA pop.

Last but not least. My waterfall card have been mentioned over at the Silhouette blog!!  I'm sorry to be so chuffed but I AM!!!! Hop over there and check it out for yourself. Just click here. If you missed my post on the waterfall card for my PL album, just click here.

That's it from me. I'm looking at wedding venues for my son's upcoming wedding this weekend. Have to run because I still want to make a notebook for myself (and one for the bride-to-be) to make sure that we don't miss out on anything.  

Thanks for looking at my blog today. Please come back as I would love to share my crafting fun with you. Have a great weekend!

Working on my Stash

Hallo Bloglanders

I'm still playing but decided that I will have to start thinking about Xmas pressies It's nearly spring in Sunny SA and I still have to sort through a lot of stuff.  Once a year I sit down and cut ALL my scraps into pages for mini books or die cuts to be used or redistributed.

Next week, I'll do a week of working with scraps - I'll explain exactly what I do and show some pic's.  Not today as I have something much more colorful to start with:

Once again, I only used scraps from other projects.  I gathered 3 die cut butterflies of the same size, stitched them together and added a pop dot to the back.

Here you can see that I did 3 different sizes:

Not easy to see, but they are on transparency sheets (from recycled packaging material) - this makes it easier to pack in my mini gift wrapping sets.  Remember them?

If you missed them, just click here.  These were amongst my 2012 Christmas presents and I have had a lot of requests for refills so I thought I'd do something different this year for my mini wrapping sets.  And my first element is done and dusted - beautiful, 3D butterflies to zuss up any pressie. That is if  I still have any left by then - you can see the first one already hopped onto my diary to brighten my wintry day. Want to see what they look like when flapped up?

I do like them a lot and it wasn't even my own idea!  A friend bought me a pack of these beauties at Typo (they cost a fortune!!) and out came my "idea book" - it took me less than a day to do some of my own. Next week when we are doing the scraps, I'll show you exactly how it works.

Have you figured out what my new toy is?  Well, I'll tell you tomorrow.  So this is the last day that you can leave a comment and guess. One person will receive some Sunshine from Sunny SA delivered to his / her address. OK, a clue - her name is Hette.

It is a long weekend in Sunny SA - my husband is away on business and all my scraps are on my dining room table.  I'm off to get them sorted.  Thanks for looking at my blog today and please come back to play as I have a lot more crafting fun to share with you right here on Play as U Go.

Have a wonderful day!

Last of the siblings

Good morning Bloglanders

The last card in my retro range:

I love making sets of cards in different sizes - when they are wrapped in a glassine envelope, it looks much more interesting.  This one was inspired by a sketch ex Scrap RDV and I love the beaded body of the butterfly. You can click here if you want to have a peek at the original.

And this is the sketch:

I wanted to recap on the rest of the family members but it seems that my friend Blogger is being difficult. I'll come back to this post and add them when the strike is over.

I have to get back to the Haunted House bag that I'm making. So, have a great week and please come back to play.

Hazel