Butterfly Hydrangea Birthday Card

Taking a little break from my not so busy Sunday morning to pop in and share a sweet Butterfly Hydrangea Birthday card I created in the shop yesterday.

I found this lovely image at Ephemera’s Vintage Garden.

It was the inspiration for this warm rich color scheme. I love to work with blues and browns….so classic. As always I did loads of layering and inking.

I created this sweet little bow with Satin with Silver Blue Topaz ribbon  from Really Reasonable Ribbon.

Off now to putter around Pinterest for awhile and find something to make for dinner 🙂

Hope you all have a happy and productive day and find some time to be creative : ) G

Happy Easter…..Giveaway….New Stash Buster Mini Album Kits

Sheeewwww that was a long post title.

But there is a lot going on here this morning lol. First of all I want to wish everyone a happy, healthy and blessed holiday. I hope you find yourselves with your loved ones….or at least thinking about them like I am.  Love all of you Texas and Florida family!

Make sure you stay tuned all the way to the end so you won’t miss out on the giveaway!

I’ve been working on some great little album kits designed to be the perfect base to add your favorite photo’s and memories….and embellish with items from your stash to add you own personal style. We all could use a little stash busting right??? I know I can! They make super great gifts…just load em up and give to someone special. Or gift it to yourself : )You know I had to add some perfectly coordinated pre-tied bows from trims from Really Reasonable Ribbon!

First I’ll show you one I’ve been working on….with pics of my sweet niece Olivia : ) I started with the base kit…and added all the paperie goodies.

All the little leftover bits and pieces worked so well to embellish the pages.

I made one for boys too!

And one that’s vintagy with beautiful Butterfly Bookmark images from Ephemera’s Vintage Garden.

These kits are already listed and available to ship right away. Just hop on over to the Etsy Shop for Little Lady, Charming Boy, and Butterfly Postal. 

Okay are you ready for the giveaway????? I thought so : )

I used the Butterfly Postal base kit…and items from my own stash to complete this sweet little mini album cover. It’s ready for one lucky winner to finish off with pics and memories. You can enter for a chance to win by leaving me a comment on this post. We are all super busy with our holiday plans…so I’m leaving it open until April 7th. Please be fair and enter only one comment per IP address so everyone has the same chance to win.  Winner will be chosen at random….and will be announced April 8th. You do have to be a pollyspaper.wordpress.com blog subscriber to be eligible to win. Already a facebook follower? That’s awesome…thanks…but you still have to subscribe to the blog: ) Good luck to all who enter : )

I hope you all enjoy a happy and productive day….and don’t eat too many Peeps lol. : ) G

With Reckless Abandon

My usual creative style is to have every little element thought out ….inked, stamped, layered, and then it’s ready to assemble. Yesterday I had an afternoon of less structured crafting. I glued without planning, inked without analyzing, trimmed with enthusiasm, and stamped with reckless abandon. It’s a sweet little album…or is it a journal??? Not quite sure yet.

 I used some very large old flash cards for my base. They were covered with Sesame Street patterns…not quite vintage yet. The inspiration was a beautiful tag from Ephemera’s Vintage Garden.  There are several in the book. Some of them I Stickled…some of them I trimmed out of larger images. I think they are very shabby chic. I also Stickled the large stamped frames.

Inside the book is a mish mash of different pages….and tag flaps. I embellished with butterflies, and words. The beautiful yummy ribbon is cream seam binding from Really Reasonable Ribbon. I’m so glad I created the vintage image organizer from last weeks post….finding all the right images was a snap.

This will be a nice place to add a picture or memento.

As you can see…I’ve used Tissue Tape to attach the pages. I wasn’t confident that it would hold up to lot’s of handling…so I peeled it up and added a layer of Scor-Tape. Can’t even see it. Now this little book will be extra sturdy. 

This set of pages has a craft paper envelope to be filled with loads of paperie goodies or pictures.

So that’s what I get for a day of free form creating. I kinda love how it turned out : ) It will look even better filled with pics and journaling. Maybe I’m on a roll? We’ll see when I get to the shop. I should mention that the workspace in the shop is a complete disaster : / Is that normal for reckless crafting???

I hope you all enjoy a happy and productive and reckless day and find some time to be creative : ) G

Vintage Image Organizer Tutorial

So it all started with me not being able to find an image that I had printed and wanted to use in my project. So I printed a duplicate. Then found the original…that I had stashed away somewhere I should have never put it in the first place. But that is soooo like me to squirrel stuff away..thinking I’ll remember where. So I created this book to organize all my printed images, and keep them from getting damaged. Here’s a look at the finished project:

This book started out as an inexpensive photo album picked up at the local dollar store. It’s meant to hold 36 ( 4 x 6 ) pics. Here is a super easy tutorial to show you how to make 1 ( 0r 2 or 3 ) of your own.

Now you’ll want to finish you cover with your favorite papers and embellishments. I covered mine with Middy Bags, then layered on lot’s of paperie goodies gifted to me by my dear friend Lisa W. She lives up North and I don’t get to see her very often. Every time I use this book…I’ll think of her : )

I chose to top my clips with Olive Wrinkle Ribbon, Lace, and Moss Gingham. From Really Reasonable Ribbon of course! I think the greens go with the nature inspired embellishments. You’ll want to choose trims that coordinate with your finished cover.

My book is filled with my favorite images from Ephemera’s Vintage Garden…you should hop over and check em out.

I think this book would be a great way to organize die cuts too. Or recipe cards you want to be able to take and see the back of. I think it would also be very sweet as a wedding or baby shower gift…..simply use the gift wrap from the gifts as your pages in the pocket and a little note from the gift giver….maybe some words of advice for the Bride or Mom to be : ) There are soooo many ways to use this book! And starting at only $1 each…you can make lot’s of them for very little. Even less if you use scraps.  

Okay…that’s a long post…we all need to get up and stretch our legs lol.

I hope you all enjoy a happy and productive day and find some time to be creative : ) G

Not tooo Pink Shabby Swallow Card

So while Jane and I were having our regular playing paper date yesterday I asked her if the card I was working on was “Too pink???” Jane says……” You can never have enough pink!!!” So here is my not too much pink card…

I created the base layers of this card with the Shabby Chic Pink Patchwork Background from Ephemera’s Vintage Garden. The Shabby Chic Swallows bird image can be found here.  I think Jane’s right…..not too pink lol.

I layered a natural burlap trim with pink edge with a wide pink gingham   under the vintage images, and topped them off with a nice big bow. These trims are from Really Reasonable Ribbon : )

More crocheted flowers here …this time I layered a large cream flower with a small pink one and topped it off with a super cute pink checkered brad. I created the flower in the center with lot’s of paint…ink….Stickles….cappuccino spray mist and glitter…then a super bedazzled center.

With all the layers and handcrafted flowers…this card is very dimensional….but not toooo pink : )

Don’t forget to stop in tomorrow for another project created with images from Ephemera’s Vintage Garden…..but don’t worry…it’s not pink : )

Well I’ve shoveled my way to the garage so the grown ups can get to work…the lucky kiddos did get their much wished for snow day.

I hope you all enjoy a happy and productive day and find some time to be creative. G

Cards for the Bride and Groom

I very excited to share that I’m teaming up with Debbie from Ephemera Vintage Garden to share my projects created in my usual shabby chic style with lot’s of vintage goodies and trims and featuring her absolutely beautiful vintage printables.

I created these cards for a bride and groom with these fabulous His and Her Hot Air Balloon images. Click the link to hop over to the post to find this beautiful freebie vintage image set.

I choose lot’s of pretty patterned papers and bordered them in office blue to match the stripe in the balloons. One for the bride and one for the groom : )

I trimmed the image down a bit to create a tag shape…inked it and gave it a reinforcing dot in chocolate brown. The black in the little top hat inspired me to add that block of black with white dots in the background. I also added generous strips of Shimmer Satin in Aqua from Really Reasonable Ribbon.

Can’t go wrong with vintage buttons right????

Well inked and layered flowers were Stickled and glittered….then finished of with bits of ribbon.

Here’s one for the bride.

Okay…so that’s my first set of cards made with 2 of her weekly freebie images from Ephemera’s Vintage Garden…you can also check out her fabulous website here. I’ll be posting another card tomorrow. I’ll give ya a little hint…it’s pink lol.

Well here in mid Michigan were in the middle of a big snow storm….so hoping for a snow day tomorrow….wish us luck : )

I hope you all enjoy a happy and productive day and find some time to be creative : ) G