Do-it-yourself beaded/flowered vines

I love the flowery, blingy vines that are popular right now. Making my own was easy, it just took a little time and the right materials. I used to make jewelry, so I have plenty of wire and gemstones on hand that I hardly use anymore.

To begin, fold a floral wire in half, you can use either white or green for this. I chose white. If you want to, you can use glimmer mist to color it as well. Wrap one half of the wire around the other until you reach the end. You will have a piece of wire about 6-7 inches long at this point. This is the "stem".



Begin making the branches for the vine. I threaded gems onto floral wire, and twisted one end to keep them in place.



For the flowers, I threaded floral wire through the center hole (many have a hole for brads) and twisted one end back around the other. Then I pinched the flower together, and wrapped the extra wire around the base to keep it in it's place.






For the leaves, I simply took a few Prima leaves and made a hole in them with my paper piercer. I threaded floral wire through them, just like the flowers.





After all the branches were done, I began to assemble the vine by wrapping them around the stem. It may take a little time to get the branches on in a design that is pleasing to the eye, but the results are worth it. To add a bit of color and interest to my vine, I wrapped a little gold wire around it as well.






Here's the layout I used this vine on, it works perfectly!

Making masculine embellishments

I'm a mother of one rather rambunctious three year old boy, so I am always thinking of ways to put a masculine spin on embellishments. Sometimes just inking or painting flowers and buttons is enough. But other times, I feel that creating my own items is a far better solution. A quick trip to the hardware store, or your husband's tool storage, can make for some fabulous finds. Have a look at what I hunted up:



Nuts, washers, pipe cleaners, and cardboard are just the ticket for manly embellishments. I decided to try a flourish made out of the pipe cleaners and nuts, and a large flower with the washers, cardboard, and pipe cleaners.

To begin the flourish, tie a knot on a pipe cleaner, approximately two inches from the end.



Thread the nuts onto the pipe cleaner until you have enough to make a swirly curve.




Tie another knot to keep the nuts on the pipe cleaner, and you can curl the loose ends up so it resembles a flourish. You can use it like this, OR, make another flourish in the same way. This time however, do NOT tie the pipe cleaner at the bottom.You will have two pieces, that look like this:



You can combine these two by placing the untied flourish underneath the completed one. Find a spot to tie them together by pushing the nuts apart. Wrap the pipe cleaner from the untied flourish around the completed one several times, and then cut off the excess. Smooth the edge down and you will have one large flourish ready for use.






Next I tried my hand at a cardboard flower. I cut a circle and petals from cardboard. They don't need to be the same size. and the more rough-looking, the better.



Begin by gluing the petals onto the circle. When finished, you can add a little paint to the petals. Roll up a pipe cleaner and glue it onto the center of your flower, and then add a few washers for good measure. I little bit of ink also helps give it a masculine look.





OK, so now I had two handmade manly embellishments, and I needed to see if I could get them on a page. I had the perfect pics of my son playing "Mr Fix It" with one of his new birthday toys. Here's what I came up with, I think the embellies look cool here! A bit different, but most definitely masculine. No frou-frou fluff on this baby! What do you think?

April Sneak Peek for Scrapbook Kit Club!

This is definitely a fun, cute kit! Have a little peeky at a few things I put together with it:





The April kit from Scrapbook Kit Club releases April 1st, don't miss it!

COUPON to share!

Who doesn't love saving money?? I've got a coupon code you can use at Magistical Memories that'll save you a bundle!

25Spring for 25% off your entire order!

Go to the Magistical Memories store, fill up your cart, and enter the code 25Spring at checkout to receive your 25% discount. If you've been thinking of ordering, NOW is the time! I'd love to know what you got, so stop in here and tell me all about it if you like. Happy Shopping!

If you find someone else's trash, turn it into TREASURE!

Yesterday I stumbled upon an incredible find. It looked like a briefcase, only bigger. I understand it is a case to hold mini CD's in. Well, it had outlasted it's usefulness to the previous owner, BUT I simply could not let it go into the trash. Even though I had NO clue what I was going to do with it, I snatched it up, and saved it from a dark and horrifying fate. Have a peek at this beauty, would you have saved it too?





Before I even got it home, I was struck with an idea. I have a ton of trims and ribbons that live in different homes. I believe that they reside in FOUR different places in my crafty stash storage. I knew this briefcase would be the perfect home for all of my ribbons and trims. I was unsure how I would work it out, as many were on spools, but I knew I could work it out if I just gave it some thought.

Think on it, I surely did, and realized I could just wrap my own trims up and call it a day. Knowing this, I launched myself first into cleaning the briefcase. I scrubbed it well, and then I pulled out the half inch foam backing on the inside of the case top. This was out of necessity, I needed more room to house my trims, so the foam simply HAD to go. I didn't like the look of the case underneath that foam, so I covered it with packaging material and some Graphic 45 paper. I want to tell you, that the best adhesive for a project like this, is Fabri Tac from Beacon Adhesives. It works on almost ANYTHING, and has a QUICK "grab", so you don't have to sit there and hold it together forever! Fabri Tac was absolutely my hero on this project!

After the inside was finished, I altered the front with yummy Graphic 45 paper and some Prima flowers. American Crafts Thickers are one of my go-to embellies, so I reached for them too. I used some trim that I had COMPLETELY forgotten about to finish off the look. I was filled with giddiness, knowing that I would NEVER again forget a trim because I couldn't find it. This project was going to make my life SO much easier!

For the trim on the inside, well, I decided it would be fine to cut strips of chipboard, wrap the trim around it, and adhere it with a pin. I got to work, and I had a lot of work to do!




After the trim wrapping work was completed, it was time to load up the briefcase. Everything went in perfectly, and it looked awesome too! The cool thing about this, is that I can EASILY take this along with me to crops and never worry about leaving some trim behind. I just can't believe how wonderful this turned out. Have a peek, and tell me what you think!

Do you love chipboard??

I do! Have a look at this sampling of the new shapes from Magistical Memories:



When I received these, and so many other fabulous shapes, I thought my head was going to explode from all the ideas I was getting! I truly love Magistical Memories products, and I want to spread the word, and try to turn others onto it as well.

Sooooo, I've decided to do a bit of Q&A with my friends and blog readers. I want to know a few things.. OH and, ummm, I'll offer up a RAK too for your time! I want to know:

a). Is chipboard an embellishment you reach for often?
b). Have you ever used Magistical Memories chipboard before, and what was your experience?
c). This one requires some legwork, LOL. I want you to check out Magistical Memories' store. Browse a bit, and tell me what your favorite shape, or category of shapes are. Tell me if you like the selection available, and anything you might want to see that isn't there.

Post your answers in a comment here. Anyone that has answered all of these questions will be in the running for a RAK of, you guessed it, Magistical Memories chipboard! Yes, I am willing to part with some to spread the word about such great product! You have until April 15th, and I'll randomly select a winner on the 16th. Remember though, to be eligible, you have to answer all my questions!

BLOG TRAIN TIME!!!!

Its time for a blog train and this one is awesome! The design teams of Scrap N'Art and Get Sketchy have teamed up together, along with SRM Stickers to provide you with inspiration and prizes!

Here is what you need to do! Visit each blog in this list. Each blogger will have a "special word" noted in their post! If you visit every blog, the words will create a sentence. After you have the full sentence, your last stop will be at the Scrap N'Art blog. You will find an email address in that final post. Email the full sentence and you will be entered to win a subscription and a prize pack from Scrap N'Art! There will be TWO winners for those prizes!

Also, anyone who leaves comments on the blog posts at SRM Stickers and at Get Sketchy will be entered to win prizes from those sites as well! So what are you waiting for? If you started here, you need to head back to the beginning of the train so you don't miss a single stop! Here's the order of the blog train, you need to start at Get Sketchy FIRST:

Get Sketchy - http://getsketchy.blogspot.com/

Bree Tetz - http://www.artsyfartsyscraproom.blogspot.com

Camille Young - http://camillescropcorner.blogspot.com

Dora Dekker - http://scrappersfun.blogspot.com

Anja Curvers - http://scrappietoo.blogspot.com

Grace Tolman - http://tolmanchronicles.blogspot.com

Lenet Mos - http://scraplenet.blogspot.com

Lisa Forsythe - http://sendingsmileswithpaperandink.blogspot.com

Sherri Thompson - http://sherrithompson.blogspot.com

Staphanie Muzzulin - http://handmade75.blogspot.com/

Ami Godfrey - http://basicallyami.blogspot.com/

Amy Hadley - http://intothecrazyblue.blogspot.com/

Carol Zeitz- http://www.cpzdesigns.com/

Cathleen Smith - http://www.3boysandabus.com/

Rebecca Price (You are here, LOL) - http://byondbzr.blogspot.com/

Danielle Gray - http://danielle-designs.blogspot.com/

Nicole Polhamus - http://www.crop-a-holic.blogspot.com/

Jennifer Ziegler - http://www.digi-scrapping.blogspot.com/

Jenn Hochlan - http://jennck.blogspot.com/

SRM STICKERS - http://srm-stickers.blogspot.com/

Scrap Nʼ ART Blog - http://www.scrapnart.com/blog/

I had a chance to work with the sketch from Get Sketchy, I am so happy with how it turned out! Have a look:



"Happy", by Rebecca Price

Stickers: SRM Stickers "Quick Cards: #52003 Happy"; Cardstock: Paper Accents; Adhesive: Beacon Adhesives "Zip Dry," Glue Arts "Glue Glider Pro"; Embellishments: Blumenthal Lansing Buttons, Prima "Just Corina Mattie Journal Overlays, Trellis Roses"; Ink: Clearsnap "Colorbox Catseye: Blackbird, Blue Lagoon"; Paint: Plaid "Apple Barrel"; Pens: Zig "Millennium"


OH, and the special word from my blog is... "INSPIRE"! Have fun hopping!