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

 

Best Day Ever!!!

Hey, everyone!  I'm still enjoying my new craft space and if I stay on track I MIGHT (okay...definitely won't) have all the boxes of craft supplies unloaded by 2029...

But in the meantime...I decided to keep the status quo and just enjoy some scrappy fun!

Here is LO I made using the July 2023 Tres Jolie Scrapbook Kit:

This kit was marketed as a masculine kit...and since this handsome man I'm dating is new to learning about my addiction hobby to all things crafty I figured it was a good kit to use to save some of our memories!  We took this photo while we were on a dinner cruise in Baltimore (the cruise itself deserves its own blog...but that's another story) and I knew this kit was going to be perfect for the picture.

If you caught my last blog post and tutorial video, I now have 4 full drawers of flowers.  This does not include flowers that I have probably not unpacked from other boxes of craft supplies, but I have made a promise to myself (and the hottie pictured above) that I will not purchase any new flowers (except for those that arrive my kit subscriptions) until I get my flower collection "under control."

Keeping that in mind, I used a mix of flowers from my stash and a few flowers from the kit.  I had a ton of navy blue flowers (go figure...what with four drawers full and all) and the dress I wore that night was navy as well, so I figured it would be a nice touch.  Below you can see some of the navy blue flowers I used along with some pale yellow/beige flowers:

This kit came with a ton of ephemera and one of the patterned papers had some additional bingo cards.  I cut the bingo cards out of the paper and distressed and inked the edges.  Below you can see some of the "grungy" numbers on the top right.  I honestly can't remember if I used the rub-ons that came in the July kit for that, or if the matching patterned paper included all of the grunge look.  Either way, the kit was a great mix of my style when I'm making more masculine LOs. I also layered some sentiments ("smile" and "best day ever") from the ephemera included in the kit along with several of the paper hearts.

Finally, below are some more of the beige and navy flowers I used for this LO.  I do try to keep my floral use to a minimum on masculine LOs, but it's really a struggle for me...I really, really, really, really like flowers.  

And there ya have it!  This is the first LO I've made featuring just the two of us...and I have a feeling there will be plenty more LOs featuring this hottie 💓...I like him and we tend to take quite a few pictures together! 😍😍

Thanks for looking around!

xoxo,

Mel

 

Altered Paint Brush

Hey everyone!  I'm back with my first blog post in FOREVER!!!  I've been out of commission for a bit between a few surgeries and a 10-week out-of-state work trip. Plus, I just bought a new house so between moving and getting settled in, things have been a bit hectic!  Have no fear though...even though the majority of the house is a total disaster, the craft room is almost completely set up!!! 😂

When I got home from my work trip I was sooooo excited to see two Tres Jolie Kit Club packages waiting on my doorstep!  As soon as I got enough stuff put together in my craft room I ripped into the July kit and got started making this altered paint brush!  I love altered paint brushes!  They are so much fun to make and they make a super cute gift for special friends (or, in this case...one of my sisters-in-law!)

Below is the finished product in all of it's glory!!!

I started this project by doing what I normally do for altered paint brushes and applied a coat of white gesso.  This isn't really 100% necessary for this type of paint brush as the porous wood and bristles generally hold color and pigment really well, but using gesso helps make all of the pigment have a more even appearance overall!

Below is a close up of one of the paper mache stars I covered in gesso and then colored using inks from the kit.  You can also see where I used some Lindy's Stamp Gang spray to splatter color over one of the flowers I applied to this project!

 

I used a piece of chipboard from the Tres Jolie store.  It is one of their black chipboard pieces.  Even though I used white gesso on it, you can see plenty of the black on the edges of the chipboard and even in a few place where the gesso was applied lightly.  I knew I was using two shades of purple that were fairly dark and I love their black chipboard in general, but having some darker tones on an otherwise girly and light project was a super cool effect!

Check out the chipboard below along with some Renea Bouquet Beautiful Beads in "By the Sea."

Finally, below you can see where I applied one of the stars to the top of the paintbrush to use as a "hanger." Normally I just hang these brushes by the hole in the top of them, but using the star was a new "technique" and I really liked how it turned out!

Here is a list of some of the items I used in this project:

Cosmic Shimmer Botanical Stains:

- Black Bean

- Woad Blue

- Marigold

Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Spray:

- Clam Bake Beige

- Jazzy Jivin Purple

Lindy's Stamp Gang Flat Fabio Spray:

- Caribbean Blue

Below is a link to my step-by-step video for this project!

Tutorial Video

Thanks for watching and reading!  I'm so excited for the new adventures I'm going to have in this house and I can't wait to see what's next!  

xoxo,

Mel