Lineage of Love with Pam Garrison

Lineage of Love was actually my first class at Silver Bella. I'll admit I swum against the tide of everyone else's use of cabinet cards and other antique photos by using contemporary photos of my family from last Christmas. Although I love the beauty of old photos and fashions, I knew I would appreciate more an assemblage that contained my family. That and if I messed things up it wouldn't cost too much to replace these photos. I wasn't able to complete this project in class, so I was able to add some Christmas tidbits that I picked up recently, and pretty tinsels and more ribbons.

I currently have the finished piece resting on one of our living room bookcases.

Here is our fabulous teacher, Pam Garrison, with a student who wired a very large banner.

There were a number of very unique banners, some showing a baby aging through adulthood, some with themed photos (costume, Christmas). You easily see individual style coming out in the projects. Thanks Pam!

Spring Blooms

I was very fortunate indeed to discover the Garlands and Banners class over at Get It Scrapped. I picked up a few new techniques and supply hints, plus loads of inspiration from class teacher Trish Turay. Our homework included making crepe medallions (I've got those down-pat!) and creating a spring banner. The base is Maya Road chip banner triangles, painted with a hand-tinted paint, collaged with Autumn Leaves "Fresh cut" papers, and layered with glitter (nope, never gonna stop loving that!), lace and other trims, ribbons, pearl stickers, millinery leaves, primas, and lots of crepe! all tied up with beautiful seam binding ribbons and a bit of pink tulle.

My banner will hang in a window (not the best for catching photos) so I shot the photos on the backside of a quilt.

Almost as pretty as the little green buds starting to waken outside the window! Enjoy the pretty fresh spring air!

Garland Swap Spoiler

OK, Kathy, no peeking. I warned you!

One of the best parts of being involved with ArtsyMama's (Kari) A Year of Color blog is being able to participate in swaps with other mixed media artists. I almost skipped this swap, but being as banners are just one of my things, I caved at the last moment. The swap turnaround time was very short, so we had to contact our partner quickly to determine colors and themes. Kathy, of Country Chintz, told me she liked one of Kari's "Nest" banners and a blue-grey, vintage look. I'm not sure if I got the blue-grey color, but it is a nice soft blue. I had saved several boxes from the SweetHearts candies to make these pretty shadow boxes. Each piece is dimentional with lots of vintage texture and a bit of subtle sparkle. The original concept of a SweetHearts shadowbox banner came from Teresa McFayden's Winterbella E-zine. (Love those bellas!)

It will be on it's way to you soon, Kathy! And for anyone else interested in a Year of Color, you can still join us and catch the next swap- May Baskets!

Fini!

I had a huge list of small projects that I really wanted to finish. Got to a number of them last week while waiting for my next big etsy inspiration. First off is my hot cocoa banner, using the pieces I shared with you a few months ago, plus other letters made by dear friends of mine.

Hot!
Cocoa! My husband thinks the garland looks like marshmallows. Guess that works out perfectly! (Although I bought it cause I thought it looked like snow!)

Then I played with some vintage paper and glitter to come up with these pretty flowers. Look for tutorials soon!

Lastly, I had purchased a small planner to carry around, but alas, having waited til mid January I was left with not many pretty options. So being already covered in glue, I painted the paper insert (it originally had coffee mugs!) and glued and sewed on some music paper, digital images, blue swiss dot and pink crepe paper to make this one of a kind piece.

Course the paint made the paper a little stiff and it won't lay flat yet. (By the way, the small words say "artsy queen".

I have a few more projects on my list, but onto that tutorial!

I've got the Joy!

My eldest daughter needed a gift for her second grade teacher, but changed her mind last minute. We came up with this quick gift idea. (being as banners are such a popular trend right now- she still had to explain to her teacher what it was!)

We used the lovely Jenni Bowlin Christmas Bingo cards for the backdrop, then covered them with vintage German Scraps, Christmas picks, cut digital collage images, dresden, tinsel and pom-pom garlands, a stamped image of a cardinal (insisted upon by sweet girl). JOY is made from Cricut's Storybook cartridge (yes, I use that one frequently!). All strung on bakers twine and tied up with seam bindings in red and hand-dyed cream!)
Closer ups of the individual letters- Hot glue gun works well for adding the picks, garlands, and dresdens. Otherwise Zip-dry is my personal glue choice for papers.

Melting Marshmallows

I am participating two new banner swaps (Hot Cocoa and Candy Cane). I am creating the "H" and a blank for the Hot Cocoa set. (We use blanks to start, finish, and separate words on a banner). I chose to create a crepe rosette dusted lightly with mica flakes. Center round is old German print, then a Cricut Storybook H and snowflake brad. Background is a candy stripe red ribbon and swirl, again from Cricut Storybook.

The blank uses Cricut Joys of the Seasons Ice Skate, with silver blades! Chalked to age, assorted scrapbook papers, prima, doodlebug velvet brad, and some craft pom-pom trim. I hope my swap partners are pleased.

Finished Spooky Banner

All the pieces made it here, and I was able to tie it all together with a combination of seam binding and tulle.

S is for Spooky

I'm hostessing a banner swap at my favorite site (Scrapshare). My favorite group is the Spooky Banner. Each participant in this particular group creates eight each of their chosen letter (there are two decorative "blanks" at each end) and I swap everyone's set out so the participants end up with one each of the blanks and letters to spell out Spooky. Color scheme is black, white, and orange. This was my first time sewing on paper- it went real well, til the bobbin ran out of thread, and then the whole machine started squeaking. Must remember to oil soon. I used SCAL to cut out the "S" in Oklahoma font. Black Market paper for the background, as well as Bazzill. Pink Paislee provided the stamp, while the tulle came from Bazzill's new line of embellishments (must get more colors!)
I can't wait to show off the whole banner. (Shhh...I'm liking this piece so much that I might just recreate the entire spooky banner in this style for a RAK!)