Happy (Late) Valentine's Day!

Happy (late) Valentine's Day!  I couldn't help but post something about my Valentine!  He's the sweetest, kindest, toughest dude I know...and he's pretty photogenic as well!  I made this LO using the January Tres Jolie Kit Club scrapbook kit.  The kit was super sweet and cute with tons of little shabby chic items it!  Here is the LO:

I did quite a bit of paper layering and used a paper doily make a shabby-licious backdrop for my photo.  Most of the Tres Jolie kits come with some amazing chipboard.  Below you can see where I distressed and used tons of embossing powder, glitter and white paint to create a vintage look on the chipboard.  Some of the flowers included in the kit had white edging around the petals and I really wanted to play off that with my chipboard. I also added some metal embellishments that I had laying around.  I used some antiquing and crackle paste on those to tie the whole look together.   

Below is a close up of another flower cluster and a closer look at the chipboard.  I used some leftover chipboard "leaves" behind my flowers to add some pizzazz to the LO.

Finally, you can see here where I inked the edges of some of the background papers.  I also added a Renea Bouquets dragonfly (because I just love all of her butterflies and dragonflies!)  There is a little bit of lace layered behind some ephemera and paper layers as well as another flower cluster.

Thanks for looking!  I hope everyone has an amazing week!

xoxoxo,

Mel

 

Good [Fall] Times

Here we are again...New Year...Same Me...Finally posting a LO from a picture I took the week of Thanksgiving...but who are we kidding?  This is what I've come to expect of me.  So much has happened in the first few weeks of 2024.  New puppy, two surgeries, I've been sick (of course), minor snow-pocalypse here in the south, etc.  But at least I had some time to craft last weekend and here is the result:

Over the week of Thanksgiving we had a few of Mr. Handsome's kiddos visit and the selfie/Snap princess herself wanted to snap a few selfies with me.  Great news for my crafting addiction hobby because I had some awesome fall colored stuff to use up in my ongoing effort to reduce the amount of craft supplies I have.  (Something tells me that this effort will never be complete)

Below you can see where I used some layered chipboard from Tres Jolie Kit Club.  The majority of items used on this LO were from a previous Tres Jolie scrapbook kit, but I honestly can't remember if the layered pine cones below were part of the kit I used.  To decorate the chipboard I used a combination of Lumiere paint (Metallic Rust and Halo Pink Gold) and some Tres Jolie crackle texture paste (copper). The pieces layer together so I made sure to use a few colors on the bottom piece that would stand out when I attached the top layer.

Below you can see a flower cluster with a few "extras."  In order to blend all the colors from the background papers, the flowers and the flowers I chose from my stash I splattered most of the LO, including the flower clusters, with some Heidi Swapp Color Shine spray in Peach.  I also dabbed lots of the the Halo Pink Gold paint around the LO and on the flowers for some added texture.

My other flower cluster, decorated in a similar fashion to the one above, along with some cheesecloth (best invention ever) and a few leaf and greenery pieces that were just hanging out on a random table in the craft room.  What were they intended to be used for?  We will never know, but they ended up on this project so we'll just stick with that plan! 😂

I also used a Tres Jolie chipboard frame around/on the photo.  The frame was much smaller than the picture, but there was a ton of "dead space" at the top of the photo, so I used that opportunity to use more flowers from my stash.  (By the way...if you're following I've been "trying to use more flowers from my stash" for 6 months now and the stash is not getting any smaller 😕)

So there you have it, first post of 2024, only a few weeks late, but again...are any of us really that surprised?  I'm pretty sure I'm done being sick for awhile...definitely done with surgery for awhile...and since it's the south we shouldn't see snow again for quite some time...so maybe this time will be different and I'll begin to post more often!  Till then...

xoxoxo

Mel

 

Live Simply

Who'd have thunk it?  Here we are at the end of the year and I've been crafting away and not posting a single thing!  But that's going to change (who am I kidding?  I know I'll get busy again soon, but I promise I'm going to try again!)  I was really excited to get some fall kits in, but then I realized that I would need to take some fall-ish pictures to use them with...so instead I made this pretty little LO using a picture of me and Hotty McHotterson from back in May!

Here is the LO:

As I try to do with LOs of the two us, I tried to make it feel a little less "girly" by using a stencil and some black crackle paste.  Also...fun (and unrelated) fact I have 5 unopened tubes of black gesso...so let's try to use that up over the next couple of months shall we?

The kit I used to make this LO was definitely a Tres Jolie Kit Club scrapbook kit...month unknown.  I kinda thought it was recent since it was near my workspace, but a quick review of the blog doesn't show anything that's looking familiar here.  However, the kit came with some great ephemera and cut out pieces.  Below you can see how I used some of the cutouts (window, butterflies and foliage) to make a layered background to place my flowers on!

Below is a closeup of some flowers I had from my stash along with a compass from my stash.  I added some Renea Bouquets Beautiful Beads to some of the flowers.

Another closeup of some flowers and ephemera layering.  I also used a Renea Bouquets blue butterfly.

Below you can see where I used the black crackle paste.  I layered it on very thick and I loved how thick and deep the cracks turned out.  I also did some texture work on the Tres Jolie chipboard piece and placed it below my photo and added some flowers and Beautiful Beads.

There ya have it!  Now let's see if I can be consistent for more than a month! 😆 Not likely with the holidays coming up...but we shall see! 

xoxo,

Mel

 

Cousins

It's been a crazy busy month...and even though I've been making plenty of fun things...I've been completely lazy about posting/blogging about them!  I've been doing a ton of resin work making items for the shop, and while I'm getting ready to blog about some of them, most of them are still curing and I'm working on making sure our inventory is high enough for our grand opening in the next few weeks, so that's taking a little bit of time away from posting everything.

In the meantime, I did move over to my scrapbook desk to work on this cute little LO.  This is a picture of several of my nieces and nephews right around the time school started this year.  I also have another LO on my desk now so that both the momma's can each have a memento of this day!  

Here it is:

This was made using the Tres Jolie Kit Club September kit and I really loved the nostalgia that the papers brought to me.  It was very vintage with lots of little "old school" flower and garden type designs.  However, the papers also had quite a bit metallic elements to them and I really like how that modernized the look of the papers just a bit.  

Below you can see one of my flower clusters.  Since I am still trying diligently to whittle down my flower collection, I was able to supplement the beautiful flowers from the kit with several flowers from my stash...and I'll do so on the matching LO as well!  😍

The kit came with some black chipboard from the Tres Jolie store and I altered the chipboard using a mix of white paint, Tim Holtz metallic stains, and a light pink embossing powder from Lindy's Stamp Gang.  I was a little surprised, but pleasantly pleased when I saw how pale the pink embossing powder turned out at the end.  But it matched the background paper perfectly so I'll take it!  You can also see some of the modeling paste I stenciled on to the background using a very delicate flowery stencil!

And that's it, a pretty basic LO, but still lots of tiny elements and, of course, featuring some of my favorite people!  😍

Till next time!

xoxo, 

Mel

 

Shabby Chic Dream Catcher

Hey, y'all!  I'm still getting settled into the new house, but since the craft room is really the most put together spot so far, I keep taking breaks from the rest of the house to go make new things!  I'm also still going through several craft kits that I've had lying around for far too long!  I know most of the stuff from this project came from a (relatively) recent Tres Jolie kit, but I'm not sure which month.  The kit came with an embroidery hoop and I immediately had the idea to layer lots of cheesecloth inside the hoop and see how easily it would hold medium.  

Years ago I saw someone make a tutorial where they made a texture similar to canvas using cheesecloth and either gel medium or gesso (or both) so I drew most of my inspiration from the project from that long-lost seen many moons ago tutorial.

Anyway...here is what the finished project looked like:

I "measured" out some cheesecloth and made sure it was big enough to fit into my hoop.  I wanted plenty of overlap so I could make the edges look a little "wispy".  After I got everything locked into the hoop I went to town with gesso, crackle paste and other textures until I got plenty of texture on my background.  I used a few sprays, stains and paints from stash and then started decorating around my texture.  Below you can see where I used a stencil and some texture paste, as well as a few flowers and some microbead.

I'd had this butterfly from Renea Bouquets sitting around for awhile and even though it was a lighter shade of blue than the rest of what I was working with, it fit nicely.  As you can see, the layers of cheesecloth held microbeads outside the hoop even where there wasn't a thick layer of medium for them to sit on (nice surprise for me! 😍)

I added a Renea Bouquets beautiful board and some more flowers on the other side of the hoop.

And of course, even more flowers, microbeads and spritzes of color! 

Overall I was really pleased with how this turned out, but (as always) I want to go buy more embroidery hoops now.  I'm going to be patient though...I really feel like as I continue to unpack boxes a hoop or two will show its pretty little face! 😂

Thanks for looking!

xoxo,

Mel

 

Wood Resin Trays: Take 1!!!

So...awhile back I got involved fell in love with resin.  As with all my craft projects resin comes and goes...but I've been doing alot with resin here lately and I love seeing all the projects with dried flowers and what nots in them. So, I decided to give it a go with some scrapbook leftovers and the August Tres Jolie Mixed Media kit.  The kit came with three small rectangular wooden trays and I just knew it was time to explore "putting things" into resin.  Here is one of the finished projects:

I "experimented" with one tray to begin with, but after take one I was excited to make a tutorial video.  The kit came with some thick pastes, one in a charcoal gray and they other in a light champagne color.  For the tutorial I covered the tray in the champagne color and went to town putting embellishments to work. 

I wanted to make all of the elements "float" in the final product so I took some time pour small layers of resin and layered in Renea Bouquets Beautiful beads, glitter, and a ton of other elements so that all they layers were at different levels in the finished project.  

Below you can see some of the layers including beautiful beads, a small broach embellishment, and a hairpin:

I used a Renea Bouquets butterfly on both of trays I made; below you can see the one I used on the champagne colored tray:

Below you can see a close up of the flower clusters I used along with a ton of the "floating" beautiful beads combined with glitter and other what nots!

Finally, here is the original tray I experimented on: 

And finally, the step-by-step tutorial video:

Thanks for watching!  I hope y'all have just as much fun making whatever you're making this week as I had making this!!!

xoxo,

Mel

Pretty (Grungy) in Pink

As promised...here is another layout featuring my hot guy!  If you follow this blog you may remember that he's still learning about the craziness passion I have for all things crafty...and then the August Tres Jolie Kit showed up and it was full of pinks and flowers and all the girly things I love.  BUT...I knew I could do something showcasing the two of us and not make it too girly (after all...I don't wanna scare the man away do I??)

Here is the finished LO:

Even though the kit was fairly girly and pinkish in nature, most of the patterned papers had a few darker elements to them also.  I chose the background paper because it some brick on it and I knew I wanted to use some crackle paste and my scrapbook.com find.

Turns out every now and then sb.com will have a Tim Holtz "bundle" where you get all the things of one color in one fell swoop (read Distress Ink, Distress Oxide, the sprays, the reinkers...just...just...ALL THE THINGS 💓)  And there I was with this gorgeous pink paper and a new bundle of Kitsch Flamingo color items to make magic happen!

I started by tearing a few other pieces of paper from the kit to layer behind my picture.  I chose the picture of us from our trip to Washington D.C. that we took before eating at the Pink Taco.  If you haven't been...check it out...have the spicy margarita and thank me later!  To keep it from being too "girly" I used a few other pieces of paper that had black and pink tones in them, tore them, distressed the edges and inked them up using some of my new "bundle" items and some black ink.  

Below you can see where I used a brick stencil and crackle paste.  I sprayed the paste while it was still dry with just a little bit of the pink Distress Oxide spray, but then also made sure to paint a few bricks pink with the Distress Paint that came in the bundle.  I also used both the oxide and regular spray to splatter on all of my flowers and a few other places on the LO.  

The kit came with two pieces of Tres Jolie black chipboard. So instead of altering the chipboard the way I normally did, I opted to leave it black (and fit in with the color scheme) but I did add some pink glitter glass (for fun...who doesn't love glitter?)

Below you can see my other flower cluster.  The pink and white flowers came with the kit, but the black roses were from stash.  I also used some Heidi Swapp sparkly spray that was black to create some additional splatters around my background, especially on my brick work!

And there ya have it!  I have a whole stack of pics of me and this hottie...and nothing to do except unpack boxes and craft!  (Okay...maybe I should work on finishing painting the living room too...maybe...)

Thanks for looking in!

xoxo,

Mel