Hambly Tribute

It's always sad when a favorite manufacturer closes up shop.  It was a real disappointment to me when Hambly Screen Prints announced that they are not going to make any more new products.  Hambly products have always been fun, innovative, and of top-notch quality.  I wish company founder Harry Hambly all the best in his retirement.  To celebrate my love for Hambly products, I want to share a special layout made with Hambly banner and flag rub-ons.

Supplies: cardstock (The Paper Company), rose patterned paper (Glitz Design), daisy patterned paper (Jenni Bowlin Studio), grid patterned paper (October Afternoon), white rub-ons (Hambly Screen Prints), colored rub-ons (My Mind's Eye), large alphabet stickers (October Afternoon), dot stickers & rectangular mini alphabet stickers (Crate Paper), all other mini alphabet stickers (Lily Bee Design), flowers (Petaloo), black pen (Zig), gold pen (Sakura).

Since it's hard to see the detail on a two-page layout, I've posted below photos of the individual pages.

Here is the left page, with the title "Never Too Old for My Dollies."

And here is the right page, with my journaling: "I've been collecting Russian dolls since 1991, and my collection keeps growing.  My favorite aspect of the collection is not its diversity, but rather the way it reminds me of my trips to Russia and of my dear Russian friends."  The wallet-sized photos are each labeled according to the dolls' style.  There are five regional variations, such as the pear-shaped dolls from the town of Sergiyev Posad and the dolls with straw inlay decorations from the city of Kirov.  There are also novelty dolls painted with cute characters, as well as unique artisan dolls painted in elaborate detail and signed on the base by the artist.

Thanks for all the good times, Hambly Screen Prints.  Your products will be missed!

Using up Scraps: Grad Card

Tomorrow is Memorial Day in the States, and that means...it's time to gear up for graduation party season.  So, I'm just making a quick post today to share a cute graduation card idea featuring a scholarly owl.  Owls were pretty trendy not so long ago, and I bet you have an owl image or two somewhere in your stash.  

Supplies: card base (Yours Truly for Archivers), light green cardstock (The Paper Company), kraft cardstock (Jillibean Soup), patterned paper (My Mind's Eye), button accent (October Afternoon), stamp (Northwoods Rubber Stamps), ink (Stewart Superior), pen (Zig).

You know those brand-identification strips that you trim off the bottom of your patterned paper?  Well, that's where I got my journaling strips.  These are plain kraft, but some brands even have a bit of pattern or some clever words that you could incorporate into your journaling.  Have fun and experiment.

Roll on summer!

From the Button Jar...

Pentecost, which signifies the end of the Easter season, is coming up quickly!  Before the season is over, I want to share this Easter layout with you.

Supplies: bandana patterned paper (October Afternoon), gingham patterned paper (Lily Bee Design), woodgrain patterned paper (American Crafts), all other patterned paper (Vintage Street Market), gold cardstock (The Paper Company), cream cardstock (Pulp), red alphabet stickers (Basic Grey), brown alphabet stickers (Reminisce), mini alphabet stickers (Lily Bee Design), decorative stickers (MAMBI), rub-ons (October Afternoon), flowers (Petaloo), blue twine (Panda Superwash by Crystal Palace), household brown twine, buttons from old garments.

As I have mentioned before, my husband Scott grew up on a farm in the western state of Montana.  I love this old childhood photo of Scott and his brother with their baskets and cowboy hats on Easter morning.  As my sticker journaling (shown in the photo below) says: "That is so typically Montanan!"

In keeping with the theme of the page, I added several Western touches, including the cowboy-style Easter basket pictured below.  The hat and boots are MAMBI stickers adhered to cream cardstock, and I made the basket by fussy-cutting and layering several rope images from Vintage Street Market paper.

One of my crop buddies frequently decorates her layouts with vintage buttons that her grandmother saved.  I felt inspired to try something similar.  I do not have any vintage buttons, but I do have some old buttons that I've cut off worn-out garments that were destined for the rag bag.  On the right-hand side of my layout I sewed a row of these repurposed buttons, using a criss-cross stitching pattern.  I tied tiny bits of twine at regular intervals between the buttons.  I think the look calls to mind barbed wire fences--another "Western" image.

Hope you enjoyed this little dose of "Yee Haw!"  Thanks for dropping by my blog.

This One's for the Guys

I hope that everyone who was celebrating Mother's Day had a great time last weekend!  I sure did.  Now it's time to get ready for Father's Day, which is coming up in June here in the States.  In honor of my husband, who is an awesome daddy to our little boy, I've posted the layout below, which is called "Kung Fu."

Supplies: patterned paper (Lily Bee), large alphabet stickers (Bella Blvd), mini alphabet stickers (Lily Bee), buttons (October Afternoon), die cuts (Lily Bee), pens (Zig).  Design copyright Denise M. Price.

The journaling reads: "My son and husband love practicing kung fu together.  It makes me happy to see them having so much fun with each other."

There are a couple of things that make this layout "green."  First of all, I created it on the back of my "Dino School" layout, in order to get the most out of my background paper.  Second, I used Lily Bee alphabet stickers to spell out my subtitle, "A Joy Shared is a Joy Doubled."  Lily Bee alphas are "green" because you can mix and match them across collections.  On this page I used alphas from the "Handmade" and "Double Dutch" collections.  For more ideas on getting the most out of your alphabet stickers, please see the "infinite alphabets" search term in my word cloud.

Thanks for looking!  I'll be back soon with more seasonal craft ideas.

Flower Power

I'm here today to announce, with great pleasure, that I've had my first layout published!  Of course, I can't post the layout here, but if you subscribe to Scrap-n-Art Magazine, look for my layout in the "Reader Submissions" article.

The May issue of Scrap-n-Art is devoted to flowers.  You will find in its pages all kinds of layouts, cards, mixed media art, wearable art, and home decor projects--all embellished with flowers.  Some of these projects are embellished with pre-made flowers, but many are embellished with handmade flowers.

Supplies: card base (Yours Truly for Archivers), cardstock (Wausau Paper), patterned paper (October Afternoon), punch (All Night Media), thread (DMC), chalk (Stampin' Up), pens (Zig), rick rack (Wrights), ink (Stewart Superior).

I love making flowers of all kinds.  Since I can't post my layout here at the moment, I thought I'd share with you a different flower-related project, the card that you see pictured above.  I created this card last summer, and although I've posted it in my Flickr photostream, I've never posted it on my blog...until today!

The inspiration for this card comes from my collection of Russian dolls.  I made my own paper-piecing pattern by studying my dolls, especially their facial features.

To make the flower on the doll's tummy, I punched eight hearts from patterned paper.  I inked the edges of all the hearts with a pen, then I arranged four of the hearts in a circle, with their points touching in the center.  I used embroidery floss to sew the hearts down.  Then, I filled in the rest of the flower by gluing the remaining four hearts behind the sewn hearts.  To top it all off, I fluffed up the sewn hearts gently with my fingers, then I glued a Petaloo rhinestone in the center of the flower.

This kind of Russian doll is called матрёшка, which means "little mommy."  Since we are celebrating Mother's Day today in the USA, I thought this would be a good day to share this card.

For more ideas on making and/or embellishing your own flowers, I invite you to check out the other projects on my blog that are labeled "flower*power."  Thanks for looking!

Lily Bee Sketch Challenge #9

Welcome to Dinosaur School!

Supplies: patterned paper, stickers, journaling cards, and die cuts (all by Lily Bee Design); pens (Zig); flowers and rhinestones (Petaloo); rub-ons (October Afternoon).

There is a fun sketch challenge up on the Lily Bee blog, and I decided to play along.  I created the layout you see above, called "Dinosaur School."

My journaling reads: "Some of my friends complain that their kids don't tell them what they do at school.  But I have no such complaints.  In fact, every day I get a reenactment of the school day--dino style!"

Not only was I inspired by designer Patricia Roebuck's sketch, but I was also inspired by the way she used a lot of white in her sample.  I wanted to use a lot of white on my layout, too, but I wanted to put my own spin on it.  What I ended up doing is turning over some of the die cuts that I used, like the flower-shaped one in the photo above.  Since Lily Bee die cuts are only printed on one side, the opposite side offers a blank white canvas, just right for embellishing.

 I also applied some white alphabet rub-ons in such a way that it looks like I "splattered" them onto the page.  In general, on this page I tried to use a lot of school-themed motifs, including letters, numbers, shapes, and colors.

Of course, I did not use just the white sides of the Lily Bee die cuts.  I used the colorful sides of the little circular die cuts to embellish my banner.

I hope you had as much fun looking at my layout as I had in making it.  I'll leave you with a list of the Lily Bee products that I used.  Thanks for looking!

"Blueberry" solid paper from the Double Dutch collection

"Marigold" gingham patterned paper from the Double Dutch collection

"Patchwork" patterned paper from the Handmade collection

(the red floral pattern is the reverse side of the "Patchwork" paper)

journaling cards from Double Dutch

alphabet stickers from Handmade

a mix of die cuts from both Double Dutch and Handmade

For more information on Lily Bee products, please see the company's web site.

Happy National Scrapbooking Day!

I've been posting a lot of cards lately.  But I have a layout to share today, in celebration of National Scrapbook Day.

Supplies: patterned paper, large alphabet stickers, arrow sticker, and border sticker (all from Bo Bunny); blue mini alphabet stickers, rubber sticker, and faux badges (all from October Afternoon); white mini alphabet stickers (Echo Park); cardstock (American Crafts); pen (Zig).

I decided to post this layout today because I really like the photos.  And I really like the subject matter.  And I really like the supplies I used.  In short, I just really like this page!  It's an older page, which I completed last summer.  Since it gives me so much happiness, I decided it was high time I shared it on my blog.

The journaling on the layout reads: "2001, Sioux Falls: My fave at the science museum?  The space stuff!"  I've always been fascinated with outer space, ever since I was a little girl.  For awhile, before I decided to become a teacher, I dreamed about being the next Sally Ride or Valentina Tereshkova.  When my husband and I visited the science museum in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, I was in heaven when I got to pose for photos with a mock up of a space suit and the space shuttle.

I know that when most people think about nature, they think about flowers and trees.  But really, stars and planets and other cosmic phenomena are part of nature, too.  They're a part of nature that we humans still know very little about, and that makes them fascinating to me.  So, from time to time, I'm going to share some more outer-space themed projects on my blog.

Before I sign out for today, I have a little treat to share with you.  The above blog badge was awarded to me by Aleftinushka.  The Russian words on it simply say "for a craft blog."  I'm supposed to choose ten people to pass it on to, but I always have a hard time choosing just a few people.  I'd rather just share it with everyone.  So, if you want a copy of this beautiful Russian blog badge, go ahead and grab one.

Happy Scrapbooking Day!

The Colors of Crab Apple Blossoms

Supplies: patterned paper (Authentique), die cuts (October Afternoon), chipboard (Studio G), tulle ribbon (Wyla), rub ons (Hambly), flowers and rhinestones (Petaloo), label sticker (October Afternoon), mini alphabet stickers (Lily Bee Design), misc. (household stapler).

Happy May Day!  I've always loved this holiday, even though it's not widely celebrated in the United States.  My family is friends with one other family that celebrates May Day, and this is the card that I made for them.  The pink color scheme is not typical for me, but I was inspired by all the crab apple trees that recently bloomed.  

The inside of the card is pink.  Very, very pink.

A playful polka dotted pattern adorns the back of the card.

Hope my post brought you a little spring cheer!  I'll leave you with a few detail shots.  Thanks for your visit!