Shabby Chic TAGS by Beatriz Jennings

Look at these beautiful shabby chic tags made by our special guest designer Beatriz Jennings. They are just lovely!!



And look! They are pretty easy to duplicate....

Shabby Chic Tags instructions:
1- Cut 2 3 1/4" x 5" pieces of Kraft cardstcok, adhere patterned paper as desired and stitch.
2- Tie twil tape around tags, add half doily and adhere vintage images.
3- Decorate with chipboard hearts, silk flowers, buttons and lace, apply stickers.




Supplies:
Advantus Girls Paperie, Paper Girl Collection, Vintage Patchwork
Crafty Secrets Heartwarming Vintage Creative Scraps, Birds & Blossoms
Fancy Pants Designs Road Show Collection 12x12 Double Sided Paper, Strips
Melissa Frances Pop Out Glitter Hearts, White
Melissa Frances Inspiration Transfer



Check out her blog for even more inspiration!! Have an awesome day, Dana

BEWARE!!! (Haunted house box)

Melissa Phillips must be feeling like it's time for fall! Or maybe she wants to give you plenty of time to copy :) her amazing Halloween Haunted house. Wow, this is so cute, take a look.



Instructions:
1. Paint the paper mache house with off white acrylic paint. Let dry, and sand the edges slightly to distress.
2. Choose desired patterned paper for front, sides, and back roof of house. Cut slightly smaller than surface areas, ink, and adhere.
3. Choose desired images for upper windows, cut, and adhere.
4. Cut desired paper for gables of roof, ink, and adhere in place.
5. Cover the front roof with black trim. Coat roof with spray adhesive and shake on a dusting of fine glitter.
6. Embellish roof with buttons along eaves, photo corners, trinket pins, a glittered bat and star, and a vintage button.
7. Wrap ribbon or tea stained twill tape around house just under roof and tie in a large bow on right.
8. Coat a chipboard scroll with orange glitter and adhere in the center of gables. Embellish with a wooden bingo marker.
9. Cut a strip of glittered border to fit along bottom edge of house and adhere.
10.Cut images from Jabberwocky paper, sand and ink to distress and adhere an image on the front and sides of house.
11.Form a banner using banner stickers, assorted chipboard letters, and die cut letters. Hang from the two front corners of the roof.







Supplies from Ally Scraps:
American Crafts Halloween Collection Thickers, Hocus Pocus Black
Crafty Secrets Images & Journal Notes,Halloween
Graphic 45 Halloween in Wonderland Collection, Jabberwocky Paper
Graphic 45 Halloween in Wonderland Collection, Alice’s Tea Party Paper
Graphic 45 Halloween in Wonderland Collection, Wonderland Classifieds Paper
Graphic 45 Halloween in Wonderland Collection, Uncommon Nonsense Paper
Graphic 45 Halloween in Wonderland Collection, Alphabet Die Cut Sheet
Maya Road Black Pearl Trinket Pins
Maya Road Wood Bingo Calendar Numbers
Maya Road Scroll Frames Chipboard Sheet
Advantus Girls’ Paperie, Paper Girl Collection, Chipboard Alphabet
Jenni Bowlin Collection, Banner Stickers, Ledger

Other supplies used:
Paper mache house
Martha Stewart fine glitter
Melissa Frances orange glitter
Off-white acrylic paint
Prima black trim
Pressed Petals chipboard star
Vintage buttons
Button twine
Tea stained twill tape

Thanks SO much Melissa, this house is amazing. Can't wait to see what you come up with next.

~ Dana

Bonus sketch for August!

Here is an awesome bonus sketch for you for August. Of course it's by Debbie Gaydos, thanks Debbie!



Hope you'll make a layout or two! Oh, and I wanted to tell you that Cathy just put up TONS of new stuff in the store. WeRMemory Keepers, Echo Park, My Little Shoebox, Bella Blvd!! And, a little birdie told me that there is LOTS more coming very soon. Check out the new stuff here! Have a great day, Dana

Simply divine.

Linda Albrecht is back with the cutest mini album, titled "simply divine cooks". I love the shape of it, and I love how you can set the whole thing in view or fold it up too. Take a look, she used tons of really cute Melissa Frances for her project.




Instructions:
Make the base for accordion book using plain cardstock. Cut the pieces
to measure 4 1/2" x 12". you will need 3 of them. Then attach the base
pieces together with 4 1/2" x 2" strips of plain cardstock. Accordion
fold at 6 intervals. Adhere the recipes cards to each 41/2" x 6" page.
You may need to trim each card on one side about 1/16" of an inch so
that when the pages fold, the card edges stay nice and flat.

Cut a 24" piece of jute string or ribbon/trim of your choice. Use one
of the large tags to make the flap to hold the book shut. Glue 1 1/4"
of the bottom of the tag to the back of the book (or the first page of
the backside.) Make sure to adhere the end of the jute string under it
also. Fold the tag 1/2" from the edge of the book page to allow for the
bulk of the pages. Sew on a large button for the clasp.

Adhere tags, photos, recipes, stickers, rub one Transfers, and chipboard
as desired to the recipe pages. Accent some of the berries on the tags
and Transfers with rhinestones. Tied some of the tags together with
string and a button, then adhere the button to the pages where desired.
Color in some of the Transfer image with markers, if desired. Adhere,
trims and lace then add buttons. Apply rhinestones to some of the
button centers.

I made the title of the book with the "simply divine" chipboard piece
then added the "cooks" letters after I painted them black and sprayed
them with a gold irridescent Glimmer Mist.











Ally Scraps Supplies:
Maya Road Mini Alphabet, Jonathon
Fancy Pants Roadshow Collection Buttons (some of the pink, blue and green)
Melissa Frances Pink Rhinestones
Melissa Frances Vintage Posey Label Die Cut
Melissa Frances Transfer, Best Cook
Melissa Frances Kitschy Kitchen Tags
Melissa Frances Kitschy Kitchen Chipboard, Homemade
Melissa Frances Kitschy Kitchen Stickers, Homemade
Melissa Frances Kitschy Kitchen Recipe Cards, Homemade
Maya Road Pom Pom trim, white
Maya Road Crochet lace white

Thank you so much Linda, for such a beautiful project. We appreciate your inspiration! Hey, I forgot to mention that we have asked Linda to stick around here at AllyScraps... and she said YES! So look for monthly inspiration from Linda, lucky us!

Check back later this week... we have a bonus sketch for you, more from Beatriz Jennings AND Melissa Phillips.

~ Dana

August Sketch winner!

Wow, we had a tremendous response to our August sketch contest!! Our most entrants ever. :) Here was Becky Fleck's awesome sketch that our entrants got to work with.



The winner??? Heather Landry!! Woohoo Heather, awesome job. We loved how Heather changed things up a bit, to make her own really individual take on the sketch. Here is Heather's terrific layout.



You're probably wondering what Heather won... well here it is.



A paper pad full of WeRMemory Keepers Heebie Jeebies line. If you want some of this cute paper or embellies for yourself... take a look right here. It is SO cute.

Thanks to all of our wonderful entrants... each layout was amazing, and as usual it was SO hard to choose just one. See you soon, and watch out for another sketch contest September 1st.

~ Dana

Do you need a gift for baby??

We'll we've got something special to show you. An amazing baby mini album and keepsake from Melissa Phillips. What Mom-to-be wouldn't love this as a gift??





Instructions
1. Choose desired page for cover of album and cut a scrap from “Layette Chart” ephemera paper to fit a portion of the cover. Ink edges and adhere near lower left corner.
2. Ink the edges of an office tag and adhere directly over ephemera paper near lower right corner, with the top of the tag extending over the cover a bit.
3. Tie the top of the tag with ribbon and embellish with a button and trinket pin.
4. Adhere trim along the bottom edge of “For Baby” ephemera image, attach trim along bottom edge, stitch around edges, and adhere near lower right corner.
5. Apply rubon to center of cover and embellish with a resin appliqué and flower.
6. For the inside pages, cut scraps of paper to cover up images that don’t necessarily correspond to the theme of your album and embellish with trim, stickers, die cuts, ephemera, gems, flowers, buttons, etc.
7. Finish of each page by choosing rubon on transfers and applying them to die cuts, ephemera, etc.
8. Fill with pictures, journaling, etc., or give as a gift.









Supplies from Ally Scraps
Melissa Frances Postcard Album
Melissa Frances Spring Ephemera
Melissa Frances Inspiration Transfer
Melissa Frances Thankful Transfer
Melissa Frances Vintage Posey Label Die Cut
Melissa Frances 12 x 12 Paper Vintage Posey, Constance
Melissa Frances Ephemera Kit, Baby
Maya Road pompom trim

Thank you so much Melissa, for sharing this beautiful project with us. We're so luck to say that we will have more soon from Linda, Beatriz AND Melissa!:)

~ Dana

August sketch contest reminder!

Hey everyone... just wanted to pop in with a reminder about our August sketch contest. Becky Fleck from Page Maps has been so generous in providing us with an awesome sketch for our August contest. We have lots of wonderful entries already... but there is still time to share your creation with us too. Here is Becky's sketch, such fun to work with!



I had a little fun playing with it too, and here is what I came up with.



I used the Cosmo Cricket DeLovely line for my project. This is one paper line that is SO much cuter in person. The papers are SO bright and fun.

Hope you have started creating already. Here are the sketch contest rules, there aren't too many. Make a layout using Becky's awesome page map (sketch)as inspiration. You can flip it, turn it, mirror image it... just use the sketch to start your layout. Finish your project and e-mail the image to us by Monday, August 16th at midnight Eastern time and we will choose a winner soon after. Send it to allyscraps@gmail.com. Good luck!

The prize is so super cool... makes me feel all Halloweenie, and it's only August. Perfect for upcoming projects. A scrapbook pack from WeRMemory Keepers, the Heebie Jeebie line. Paper, embellies and an alphabet all rolled into one adorable pad!



Thanks so much for checking in... see you really soon, with an awesome project from Melissa Phillips. :)

~ Dana

A big AllyScraps welcome to Beatriz Jennings!

We are so pleased and excited to welcome Beatriz Jennings to the AllyScraps design team family! Here she is...



"Hi, my name is Beatriz Jennings, I fell in love with scrapbooking when I was looking through a magazine and saw all of the beautiful things that you can do with paper. Right now I'm in love with card making and altered art. I have been scrapbooking for 4 1/2 years and I love to use ribbon, buttons, and flowers on most of my creations. I don't know how to describe my style, but some people say that is a little bit romantic, feminine, and even shabby. Some of my work has been published in magazines like Handmade(formerly Paper Trends), Scrapbook Trends, Cards, Paper Crafts, Scrapbook and Cards Today and Cardmaker magazine to list a few. I have also had projects published in idea books and had tutorials and projects published online on scrapbooking/papercrafting sites and some e-zines."

These vintage cards from Beatriz are just gorgeous.



Supplies:
Advantus Girls Paperie - Paper Girl Collection - Vintage Patchwork
Fancy Pants Designs Road Show Collection 12x12 Double Sided Paper - Dilly Dally
Fancy Pants Designs Road Show Collection 12x12 Double Sided Paper - Strips
Melissa Frances Inspiration Transfer
Melissa Frances Stickers - Airmail
Maya Road Kraft Envelopes
Maya Road Velvet Pleats Flowers




Thinking of you card instructions:
1. Make card from cardstock and cut paper slightly smaller than card front, paint and distress ink edges, machine stitch.
2. Cut paper to cover the part of the top of Kraft envelope, adhere and distress ink edges.
3. Adhere sticker on the right bottom part of card.
4. Tie ribbon around card, adhere to card front and add lace, sticker and button.
5. Add velvet flower and rub ons.



Thanks for being you card instructions:
1. Make card from cardstock and adhere paper on card front, paint and distress ink edges.
2. Cut the top part of kraft envelope, cut one paper doilie in half and adhere behind, add to fit card front.
3. Adhere stikcer and button, adhere one more sticker on the bottom part of card and apply rub ons.
4. Tie twill tape and pom pom trim, add flower and adhesive pearls.

Thanks so much Beatriz, we're looking forward to your wonderful projects at AllyScraps this month.

~ Dana

"Sing your own song!"

I'm loving birdies lately... and it looks our friend Linda Albrecht is too. Wow, this is CUTE!



Instructions:
The Melissa Frances Backdrop piece was covered with "Blue Calico" GCD
Designs paper. Lightly sand the edges and ink with a light brown ink.
Hot glue the beige ribbon around the backside edge of the bottom half of
the backdrop piece. Adhere beige ric rac horizontally across the
backdrop then thread 2 extra large buttons with cotton string or floss
and adhere them to each end of the ric rac. Lightly sand the buttons
for a distressed look. Cut flowers from patterend paper then adhere
them near the bottom cetner of the backdrop.

The felt bird is handmade (you can request a pattern and instructions by
visiting Linda's blog). Make sure to ask her to send the pattern to you via email! She added the October Afternoon paper with the words on it to the wings and tail pieces. You can also buy premade birds with artificial feathers at a craft store. Once you have the bird you wish, hot glue it to the center of the ric rac piece. Use hot glue to adhere a twig and artificial greens below the bird's belly. Apply the "sing your own song" sentiment with letter stickers. Punch holes for attaching ribbon to hang.




Supplies:
GCD Studios Homespun Chic "Applique" paper
GCD Studios Homespun Chic "Blue Calico" paper
October Afternoon Thrift Shop "One of a Kind" paper
Melissa Frances Beige Ribbon
Melissa Frances "Label Style" Backdrop
Fancy Pants "Rusted Sun" Buttons
Bo Bunny "Sun Kissed" 12x12 Combo Stickers
Other:
Ivory 1.5" ribbon
felt bird
twig and artificial leaves stems
Colorbox "Creamy Brown" fluid chalk inkpad

Thank you so much Linda, for another beautiful home decor piece!! Have a great weekend, Dana

Yes, we are having an August sketch contest!!!

We are SO pleased to have a special guest artist here at AllyScraps this month. Becky Fleck, sketch designer specialist and author too. She's getting ready to come out with her 2nd Page Maps book... love her sketches, and her blog is awesome too.

Anyway, she has one special sketch to share with us this month, AND coming up in October, she'll be a guest designer here at AllyScraps. I cannot wait. :) So here is Becky's August contest sketch.



Hope you will all get creating right away. Here are the sketch contest rules, there aren't too many. Make a layout using Becky's awesome page map (sketch)as inspiration. You can flip it, turn it, mirror image it... just use the sketch to start your layout. Finish your project and e-mail the image to us by Monday, August 16th at midnight Eastern time and we will choose a winner soon after. Send it to allyscraps@gmail.com. Good luck and have fun.

Oh, and the prize, the prize.... here it is at last! An awesome scrapbook pack from WeRMemory Keepers, the Heebie Jeebie line. Paper, embellies and an alphabet all rolled into one adorable pad!




I cannot wait to get this paper in my hot little hands too! Thanks for stopping by. More from Linda Albrecht really soon! Dana