a bee bottle and a party

Good Morning!

I have an altered bottle and a birthday party to show you today.

So, do you like my new blog design? I love it. I felt like I needed a blog over haul so I contacted Karen at Karen Valentine Design and told her what I was looking for and she came through like a dream! She used one of my pages from my fleur de lis album as her starting point and added the soft colors that I love and irises, of course :) I'm so glad I found Karen, no way I could have managed this on my own!  

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Now, for my bottle. The plastic bottle is a Watkin's dish detergent bottle. Watkins products have been around forever and their packaging is the old timey vintage that I love. I wanted to try my hand at an old vintage label, so, I used my Crafty Secrets Queen Bee stamp set along with the French Mail set and made a new label for a honey bottle.

I did my stamping with Ranger Distress Black Soot and Vintage Photo inks and my distressing with Antique Linen and a blending tool. I used Copic markers for my coloring in G82, W1, E23, YR21, B95. I colored my seam binding with Distress Stains in Antique Linen, Broken China and Wild Honey. I added Rock Candy Distress Stickles to the bees wings.

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These are pictures of my granddaughter Sonny's birthday party, she's a whole 1 year old now! She had to be stripped for the cake eating, LOL!

She wasn't happy here because someone got into her cake!

Here's big brother sneaking a cupcake.

Here they are at the pool. This is Jr. and his buddy, all the little ones at the party belong to Dustin's friends he grew up with, Kyle, Tyrel and John.

Here's Sonny after her cake bath opening her gifts.

Taking a break for sun screen.

Here's Sonny and Kyle's oldest in the sand box turned kittie pool.

Sonny and Dustin getting ready for cake.

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Have a great week, thanks for stopping by!

Our Craft Lounge & May Arts Week

Here we are on Day 4 of the Our Craft Lounge and May Arts hop!

Have you been enjoying all of the eye candy? I know I have!

I've made another card with the gorgeous May Arts ribbon, I LOVE this ribbon, the colors are divine. It's aqua with a greenish shimmer, so pretty!

The card base is cut from Idea-ology Craft Resist Paper Stash, the music paper is from the Crafty Secrets Creating with Vintage Patterns CD and the key lock is a stamp from Our Craft Lounge's Under Lock & Key set. The cute bird and cage are cut from Alterations Mini Bird & Cage set, and colored with Adirondack Paint Dabbers.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We’ll have 3 BIG prizes to give away this Friday, August 26th! You have lots of ways to enter EVERY SINGLE DAY this week + one BONUS entry!
Daily leave 1 comment on each…
the OCL Blog,
each designer’s blog playing along that day, and
our Facebook page.
BONUS ENTRY: If you “LIKE” us on Facebook, you’ll get a bonus entry (as long as you tell us you did it).
AND… don’t forget to check out the May Arts Blog for chances to win some great OCL stamp sets too… SCORE!

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This months challenge at Inspiration Emporium is to use paint, so, this card is perfect for the challenge! Go check it out!

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I hope you enjoy the eye candy today!

Our Craft Lounge & May Arts Week

Our Craft Lounge and May Arts are teaming up this week to show you some amazing products from both companies! Wait until you see all the wonderful projects we have to share with you this week.

More details below!

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I have used May Arts ribbon from the time I started paper crafting about 7 years ago, their selection is HUGE and the quailty is no.1! Who hasn't heard of May Arts?! Duh!! :)

Here's my card I made with the YUMMY May Arts ribbon and trim and the OCL Sunflower Seeds stamp set. I added Coffee Bean Brown Sparkly Fluff to the flower centers.


Each day we will post little peeks of the samples our team prepared on the OCL Blog & May Arts will be doing the same on their blog. Now don’t forget to leave some love everywhere each and every day this week because there will be lots of blog candy flying around!

We’ll have 3 BIG prizes to give away this Friday, August 26th! You have lots of ways to enter EVERY SINGLE DAY this week + one BONUS entry!
Daily leave 1 comment on each…
the OCL Blog,
each designer’s blog playing along that day, and
our Facebook page.
BONUS ENTRY: If you “LIKE” us on Facebook, you’ll get a bonus entry (as long as you tell us you did it).

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Well, that's it! Have fun hopping around today and Good Luck!

and the winner is....

...NancyB!

Nancy said-
Thanks for the chance to win these goodies! I love altering mini albums and frames etc. And I love that beaded trim. Yummy!

I'll contact you shortly for your mailing info!

Crafty Secrets August Challenge ~ Fairies

It's Crafty Secrets challenge time!

I went thru my alter box again for this challenge. I found this frame I'd bought a couple of years ago, I bought 2 or 3 on clearance at a gardening gift shop. They are painted shabby white so all I had to do was add the papers from the Crafty Secrets Creating with Vintage Patterns CD. Isn't this striped floral gorgeous?!

The sweet little girl in the frame is my granddaughter Sonny :)

I stamped the banner with a stamp from the new Crafty Secrets Born to Fly stamp set with Ranger Distress Black Soot ink on paper from the Vintage Patterns CD and cut the butterfly with my alterations butterfly die.
I made the flowers with more of the papers cut with my alterations Tattered Florals die and I cut some pink tulle with the die too.
I stamped the fairies and paper pieced them, cut them out and adhered them to the frame.

I added some tulle on her skirt and a piece of vintage crocheted lace for a belt. There is Martha glitter on the wings.

This is the pins I used to make the altered pins stuck in the flowers. Just glue on a button to the pin top, these pins are perfect to glue stuff on, you can get them at any sewing store, I got mine at Hobby Lobby. I added a Kaiser Rhinestone to the center of the vintage buttons. Just another way to use up buttons from my stash!

OH! Don't forget to post a comment on this post for a chance at my give-away! You'll have to scroll down quite a ways to comment, blogger is have fits again. I'll be announcing the winner tomorrow, 8-23!

Well that's it, now head on over to the other amazing designers blogs and be inspired!


Vicki Chrisman Team Leader
Heidi Blankenship
Linda Duke
Michele Kovack
Julie Campbell
Amy Teets
Debbie Marcinkiewicz
Fauve van Maanen
Gini Cagle
Jan Hennings
Tammy Roberts
Victoria Warren Mears
Viola Mahr
Heartwarming Vintage Blog
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Crafty Secrets Fleur de Lis album & a give-away

Hi friends! I'm home from work today taking care of Terry, he had knee surgery Monday. They went in and did some repair work so he'll be off for a few weeks. I don't know how many more westerns I can take, ugh. ;)

Today I'm showing you an altered chipboard album that Sandy carries in the store, it's the Regal album. Sandy bought out Tattered Angels albums and chipbard frames and fonts. The albums are so cool, they have a window and a heavy acetate piece you adhere to the inside of the window and acetate fleur de lis for the tabs. This album will be a flower garden journal for pictures and notes.

I've got a fun give-away too, more about that in a minute.

I covered the album and the inside dividers with paper from the Crafty Secrets Creating with Vintage Patterns CD. I colored some seam binding with Ranger Distress Vintage Photo & Spun Sugar ink. I used some bead trim along the paper seam with May Arts ribbon over the top of the trim. I got the trim at a thrift store, 9 yards for $4, a great buy! I love using beaded trim on my projects, it adds so much!

I went wild Vicki style :) with my Glimmer Mist on the pages, I used Sea Glass, Vintage Pink, Garden Fairy, Gingerbread and Juniper.
I decorated the tabbed dividers and this 1st page with Glimmer Misted paper doilies, paper scraps, buttons and embossed chipboard frames. I picked some images from the Birds & Botanicals Images & Journal Notes booklet.

I dabbed my finger in my ink pad and rubbed the frame, I added Ranger Rock Candy Distress Stickles to the frame, you can't see it in my pictures though :(

I stamped the edges of the inside pages with my Lacey Patterns stamp set and I used the fleur de lis from my Artsy Banner stamp set on some of the pages. I used Ranger Distress Vintage Photo, Spun Sugar, Tattered Rose, Peeled Paint & Broken China ink.

I cut some mats with my Spellbinders Labels 8 die for pictures or journaling out of a vintage writing tablet.

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Now, for my give-away!

There is a package of vintage trim, 2 feet of beaded trim, vintage buttons, a spool of ribbon, scalloped paper trim, a Regal chipboard album, embossed frames a bottle of Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist and a Birds & Botanicals Images & Journal Notes booklet. Everything you need for a good start on a journal of your own!

Just leave me a comment and I'll pick the winner Tuesday 8-23, the day after our Crafty Secrets monthly designer challenge.

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Good Luck my friends!

celebrate life

Good Monday morning!

Another week, another dollar, LOL!

I've got another card to show you using another new Crafty Secrets stamp set, Vintage Silhouettes. It's a small set with 15 stamps in all, I used 8 of them on this card. The silhouette scenes you can make are endless!

The papers I used are from the Creating with Vintage Patterns CD, Neenah Solar White & blush cardstock. I used Ranger Distress Spun Sugar ink for the images and sentiment and Antique Linen for the distressing on the main image and paper doilie. I cut the image with a Spellbinders oval die and the blush piece is cut with a labels 8 die. I added some glitter and Kaiser Pearls.
I had another fun morning printing papers from the Creating with Vintage Patterns CD. It's just like shopping online or at your fave scrapbook store!
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I hope your day is cooool!