The second mini that I created with the paper was actually the one I started with. I loved the whole idea of the teapot shape and the cute embellishments. Somewhere though along the way I lost my mojo on this project. Luckily I have great inspiration on tap from the Facebook Group 4 Gs (Girls, Grins, Glitter and Glue)  They came up with some brilliant additions to finish this project off.

Here is where it sits now:

I admit that I am a paper hoarder. Honestly though, if you are going to be a hoarder, don't you think scrapbooking supplies is a wonderful thing to collect?

This week, well the last couple of months on and off really, I have been enjoying the fabulous Fabscraps High Tea Paper Collection. No really, I bought the whole collection.

Uhmmmm, two of the collection really but who's counting. I love the theme (come on High Tea...My Grandma's Teacups) and the designs are so beautiful. 

I have only worked my way through a small portion of the first kit and have already created two really fun mini's.

This is the first. It is an 8x8 chipboard mini.

One of the absolute best parts of having a craft business is that you meet the most talented people. The other day I was fortunate enough to have Denise Marchetti in my studio. Denise was telling me about this amazing calendar that she had created using her Prima Stamps. I was intrigued and she promised to share pictures of her masterpiece as soon as possible. Well guess what, she sent them to me Thursday. So knowing me as as you do, of course it took me until now to to get everything organized to share them.

Here we are: Denise Marchetti's Prima Doll Calendar.

January, is birthday theme as my daughter and granddaughter are  both January babies I used anything I had on hand that  would go with my theme.great idea to use scraps and from your stash!

February: Valentine's Day

March: Easter is in March 2016

April: Vacation theme

May: Bring in May flowers from stamps I have

June: Used stamp of the month from close to my heart  and SU lovely as a tree

July was paper piecing to create a scene at the beach

August is stickers from leftover packages I had

September is back to school

October: My favourite one is large spider web stamp embossed  with black and then spiders are from die and so are pumpkins

November: Leaves falling (some distressing and inking)

December: Waiting for Santa santa in window is fussy cut from paper  and then place behind acetate and then window die cut.

Thank you for sharing your beautiful calendar with us Denise. It is wonderful to have a chance to see the versatility of these adorable stamps.

As I was organizing my studio (ok, I lost some stamps and was just moving piles of paper around), I came across our club layout from August. I wanted to be sure that I shared it with you because if you have not worked with this line yet drop everything and go get some before it retires. It is very vintage and classy in true Graphic 45 style. I did find the colours a bit 4th of July but it was fun to work with as a beachy backdrop to some of the summer pictures I snapped of the kids.

The collection was challenging to work with from a design perspective because even the "solids and stripes" type patterns were very busy. The images were so cute though that it was definitely worth the effort.

The layouts are from the Cricut Artbooking cartridge and I think that they were a perfect match for the playfulness of this line.

Scrapbooking

I think sometimes as scrapbookers we get caught up in adding as many sparkles, bling and embellies as we can to make our layouts pop. This layout was a nice reminder that sometimes the KISS principle is the way to go. Mr. McWilliams my highschool art teacher always preached the principle of Keep It Simple Sweetheart. This beautiful paper from Fabscraps lends itself perfectly to a simple design. We used a little bit of distress ink and a few flat backed pearls to create what I think turned out to be a beautifully elegant layout.



We used Fabscraps Secret Garden 2 (1) , American Crafts Smooth Brown Sugar Cardstock (1) American Crafts Smooth Leaf Cardstock (1)American Crafts Smooth Denim (1) Close To My Heart as the base but any sturdy cardstock would be fine.  I used my cricut to cut out the damask pattern as well at the flowers, wheelbarrow, vines and tags. The ink that we used to distress the paper was Tim Holtz Vintage Photo as well as Close To My Heart Smokey Plum for the flowers.

If you are interested in obtaining a kit to make this please visit my ebay shop
My Grandma's Teacups Crafts