Lasting Memories Buttons & Bows

This week over at Lasting Memories we were challenged to use buttons and bows. I kinda knew I wanted to have flower stems with bows as leaves and had a few pictures of Maddycakes in mind. I have actually used the best shots already but no reason why you can't still scrap some of what's left huh?

Here's what I came up with this week:

I'm thinkin VERY busy, VERY bright!!! (this is Madyson holding out a delicate daisy for Grandma to see). I had intended to try doing a CAS page but something in me just won't go in that direction. I bought these new BoBunny papers at YTOC for another project and they just kept callin me! Does anyone else hear those voices or is it just me?

Anyhow the beginning of my page was the white ruled paper that had pretty swirls of flowers so I just built it around this. The sewing machine was still out so I stitched here and there and even zigzag'd a black and white stretchy ruffled trim down one side. Before I knew it I was merrily busying up my page - see I just can't help myself!

And of course the theme was buttons & bows right? So I added buttons to the flowers - they were just crying out for button centres (those voices again I swear!) and instead of bows I used knots. Bows just looked too much but my ribbon is still tied so I'm guessing it counts - all part of that creative license thingy trust me.

Lastsly I knew I had picked up some cute felt letters in Tesco's of all places would you believe? I nabbed them last summer but hadn't used them (like most of my stuff). They were brightly coloured and had button embellies so I knew they'd add even more to the theme.

I added black gems for fun and mounted the whole thing on black so I could pull the black throughout the design.

I am seriuosly considering framing this page and giving it to Maddycakes to hang in her bedroom. It is certainly bright enough for a little girl's room (and far too bright for me). Next time I see a nice square frame at one of my local charity shops I'm in there! I love giving framed pages - so personal. Now let's hope they still have some of this fab BoBunny paper left when I can get into Your Touch of Craft next.

Get yourself over to Lasting Memories blog and check out the other DT creations.

More WM Workshop

I promised to share photos of the gals in full play mode at the very first Waltzing Mouse Workshop today so here they are.

Just look at that table now! No matter how much room you give crafter's they always want more. Our workshop was in the upstairs classroom at YTOC and it's lovely to have this space above the shop but what I wouldn't give to have 3 times as much size some days!

All of these ladies are special in so many ways and all equally lovely people so I really look forward to seeing them. Over the course of time you really get to know something about them, their personalities, their families and things they choose to share with you, good and bad and I feel very priviledged and blessed to be able to say that I know them. If I wasn't teaching classes to them then I'd be sitting along side them taking somebody else's class - honest, and I'd be hard pressed to choose just which one to sit next to as well.

Here above we have (left to right) Sheila, Jackie and Trisha who won the day's door prize.

And in this shot we have (left to right) Chris - that super talented lady who made the fab card for her grand-daughter, Caroline (already a fan of WMS) and then Diane. And so I don't leave Rosina out she is in the very first shot on the left. She also works at YTOC and was super helpful today so I love her for that.

I have a warm fuzzy place in my heart when I think of several of these ladies and all for different reasons and Caroline (left) is one of them. She has a great sense of humour and ALWAYS puts a smile on my face. She was also the one who encouraged me to enter a page of mine in the 'Scrapbook Trends' magazine. First time ever and it was featured! That then encouraged me to enter for the Project Tuesday DT call - also first time ever and I was chosen and that has since snowballed to my joining the Lasting Memories DT and also playing the Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge where I made 'top 3' on week 4.

Without the encouragement of Caroline I might never have done it. Thanks Caroline! Hope you enjoyed today. It was such fun having you in class today even if I couldn't eat your strawberry sticks!

It feels great to be back teaching after quite a long break as well and I have a class coming up on Wednesday evening too so I am back in full swing. I certainly hope we get the chance to run a further WM and Nestabilities workshop real soon. I had a blast and it was so nice to catch up with everyone - so thank you very much ladies! Oh and a special thanks to Claire at WM too!

Waltzing Mouse Workshop

Well the day finally arrived! The workshop that has been booked for some time now finally got underway today. I was so excited and so were the girls booked on the class! Sadly one couldn't quite make it today after all and it's a shame when that happens but she still gets her goodies to play with.

I went in nice and early to prep for the day (thanks to a ride from Kay). It's nice to see the tables all set up and ready - AND tidy too. They didn't stay that way for long - you'll see what I mean when you see the workshop in action snapshots!

Everyone had a class pack with some lovely new nestabilities dies and a fabby new WM stamp set to play with.

Then as a little something extra I had made everyone a small handmade card and added a personal message in with each one. I wanted to thank everyone plus give them even more inspiration for a CAS card. As an extra bonus I shared a surprise from Claire herself tucked inside each card too. It was such fun for me to watch all the girls opening up their little card packs to see their lovely surprises. I had also hidden something inside one card for a lucky gal to win a few single WM stamps and choccies that I presented in a decorated box I had made.

We had a whole bunch of inspiration for everyone to look at too. And of course they had Claire's blog address on their stamp packaging so they can all go look at the great samples provided by Claire herself and her fab DT.

These were the cards we made today and this one allowed me to show the girls how to create a mask to achieve some of the elements we wanted plus piecing and layering the different parts of the stamps together.

This was the second card we made and while I had to admit that I might ordinarily have walked past these papers if I was choosing to buy new papers - I also had to admit that they had worked surprisngly well in the end. They provided a lovely mix of colours and patterns to play around with.

I will share photos of the girls hard at play in a second post rather than make this one a super long one so check it out!