Brother Scan N Cut

Hello Everybody!

 

What an exciting day it has been, I finally did something wonderful with this wonderful machine.  I have had it for two and a half months and have been converting and making files for it ever since.  Have a nice little collection and have been doing bits and pieces and making all my flowers on it, but did not really have anything that was a start to finish project on there yes.  Well today I do.  Yes I still used a couple of dies, but the rest is all Brother Scan N Cut.  Very proud of myself.

 

 

Yes a pop up box card with loads of flowers and butterflies of course!  All in blues.  The panels are all layered with Bazzil cardstock and a patterned paper. 

 

 

The white flowers have been inked with Ranger Distress ink Shaded Lilac (lovely colour).  I  really am liking using the Distress inks for shading and blending.

 

 

On the top of the box I have used some upright cardstock attached to the cross sections, but find this is not really enough to support a lot of decorating, so I use strips of clear plastic (acetate or transparencies to attach to the supports to extend higher and to support the tops of the swirls and the butterflies.  Invisible support, how clever is that?

 

Well as you can see I am starting to get more use from my ‘Baby Brother’ as I call this toy.  He is really very clever and you will get to see more from his blades in the coming posts.

 

Hope you like todays project.

 

Hugs 🙂

Lauren

 

 

 

 

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New Prima Stamp

Hello Everyone,

 

We have had a couple of seasons in one day here today, warm and sunny this morning, thinking Spring was here to stay!  Then around lunchtime the clouds came rolling in and the breeze picked up, temperature dropping rapidly and then the rain came again.  Almost bitter, been cold all afternoon, yuk!

 

So it was a creative day!! Recently I received two new Prima stamps, lovely ladies with flowers in their hair and looking so exotic.  Need to be coloured in and you know I am not so happy about that, so I thought I would just do the minimal and decorate them….. 🙂

 

 

 

The stamped and coloured frangipani flowers are cut out on the Brother Scan N Cut, gotta love that, stamp a heap of them, put it in the machine, scan, select the outline tool and amazing, ten flowers cut out before you can settle in to have a cuppa.

 

I will use her in a mixed media canvas later on.  Did I tell you the best tool I have in my craft room these days is the Brother Scan N Cut and you will be seeing much more of its uses 🙂  Even some files I have made for it. 

 

Hope you like this little lady.

 

Hugs 🙂

Lauren

 

 

 

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Art Journal Cover

Hello Everyone,

 

Brilliantly beautiful Spring Day today to celebrate the start of the season.  The sky is no longer pale and the trees are showing signs of new leaves.  Gotta love that the warmer weather is on the way, it has been a cold Winter for me this year.

 

So I decorated the cover of an art journal that will probably be used for notes, tips and techniques.

 

 

I love owls, and this fat little fellow at the top is my favourite, he is a Marianne Die.  the ones at the bottom are from a SU punch.  Fairly simple, just a covered book and then decorated with die cuts, glitter and Glossy accents on the letters.

 

Hope you like him.

 

Hugs 🙂

Lauren

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Marianne Box….

Hello Everyone,

What a glorious Saturday, err,huh,hum, it is Friday and a wonderful one  it has been, little cool, but then it is Winter, but I have been having a wonderful time creating.  Miss Shelley over at Shelley’s Land posted a pic this moring and said I should make my version, so I have done!!

Now this is so pretty.  The die set used for the top and the bottom of the box is Marianne Creatables LR0236, a set of 4 dies and I have used the large base, the filligree base and the swirl on the side of the box.

It really is easy to create beautiful things when the beauty is in the die!!

I have also used the birdcage die Marianne Creatable LR0146, the Marianne Birdies and  the gorgeous leafy flourishes Marianne Creatables LR0271.

Now there is a close up of the side with the swirl and that beautiful Marianne Birdie that I so love!!

Lace around the middle of the box with seam binding through and a double bow.  Love my ribbon and bows.

Now you see inside the bottom of the box, so pretty seeing the die cut extend to inside and a lovely close up of the side of the top of the box too 🙂

The box is quite high and so would hold a nice amount of goodies, or choccies to give to someone nice!!

Oh an another of inside the box, and an inside of the top too, I put the die cute there as well because I thought it was so beautiful.  Actually, no I didn’t, I made a mistake and stuck the lid down the wrong way round!!! So ended up with it there and had to cut another one for the top.  Worked out quite pretty anyway, so not to worry.

So there you go, a lovely afternoon’s work 🙂

I will have instructions for this box available for purchase here on my blog at a later time.  Just getting them ready now and working out the best way to go about it.

Thanks for calling in.  Hope you are having a great day.

Hugs 🙂

Lauren

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Mixed Media Canvasl….

Hello Everyone,

 

I have been Skycrafting with my friend Lisa and we always do great stuff when we get together.  Lisa was going to do a class on a canvas in the sytle of She Art, and she inspired me to make this 🙂

 

 

Awww……. so much texture, so many elements, so much build up and I love the finished product.

 

 

The top part of the canvas, gotta love that little birdie!!

 

 

And another little birdie hiding down the bottom, awww….

 

 

 

Love the flowes, all those roses were sprayed with Dylusions spray ink (love that stuff).

 

The background was stamped onto tissue paper and then adhered to the canvas with PVA, who would have thought you could do that??? See Miss Lisa taught me something again!!

 

So get on over to see what she has created, it will be well worth the visit!!!

 

Hugs 🙂

 

Lauren

 

 

 

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Tag Pocket Card

Hello Everyone,

 

It is getting cooler still with a cold change moving in and although we have lovely sunny days forecast through till after the weekend, the temperature is dropping to the teens for the days to come.  Brrrr…..

 

So I made a card for a challenge on SCS but it doesn’t really fit, because I was supposed to use an envelope for the pocket, but I made my own and thought it was pretty cool.

 

 

The tag is made of cardstock and decorated with the same paper as the pocket.  The paper I have used is from Bella and it is just gorgeous, double sided, in cream and  black with owl and swirls on one side and those brilliant stripes on the other.  How pretty is this?

 

The front is decorate with lace and die cut leaves that have been inked in anger Distress Ink Walnut stain.  The roses are dipped with the same ink and the edges are done as well.  The larger rose is a Laurens handmade rose, the smaller ones are bought and made from mulberry paper.

 

The tag is shaped and the top is punched with Matha Steware Wild Flowers corner punch and stamped with a script and edged around with the Walnut Stain ink.

 

Decorated with a panel of the paper and lace and a panel for writing on.  Further decorated with a rosette made from the Memory Box Die Gothic Rosette and the leaf and roses.  I have finished this with some Stickles aound the rosette and the top of the tag.

 

 

You know I cased this from Lisa, she makes such beautiful tags and pockets.  Only she does them with such finesse and such wonderful colouring.  I am really a monochromatic sort of girl, my senses get overwhelmed when I try to get more than a couple of colours to work together, and I am totally floored when I have to incorporate patterns into the mix as well.  🙂

 

Well, I hope you liked this, have a great day and get some inky fingers, it is so fun!!

 

Hugs 🙂

 

Lauren

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Journals for Sarah and Beth…

Hello Everyone,

 

Gorgeous Autumn day here, sunny, beautiful and nice and warm (24 degrees), and tomorrow is going to be around the same.  So I went off to visit a friend of mine, it has been way too long, life keeps happening.  And of course her two girls who just make me feel so special, it is like and an adopted gran to them.

 

I am fairly hopeless and have been making and thinking about these journals for the girls for a long long time.  The one for Beth was easy, she loves ballet, pink and purple and cats.  So I made her journal with those things, so easy for me.  Charms, die cuts and fun.

 

 
The round charm tied to the spine says ‘love to the moon and stars’ and that about sums up how I feel about this girl.  She is no pushover, but is so very special.  Love her to bits.  Inside the journal is random stamping on various pages and an envelope with goodies and for storing bits and pieces for journalling or sticking in later.  Almost like a hand made smash journal.  I hope to see her arty adventures later in the year.

 

Now my little friend Sarah, who is 9 (almost) going on 29, she is so talented and intelligent, she is far more mature than I am, and I find it scary that she might figure this out.  She loves green and dragons.  She is incredibly creative and imaginative and can turn an idea into reality with no apparent problems at all.  Whereas I dither and over think things, I agonised for weeks on what do do about the dragon on this journal.  Eventually settling on this.

 

 

And you know she loved him.  She drew him in the journal quicker than you would believe.  I do love punchart or paper piecing, love the intricacy of it, the cleverness.  I am so pleased the girls liked their journals.

 

Now today I have a couple of My Minds Eye stamp sets to do a bit of practice with, so that I can challenge Lisa with them.  We love having stamps in common to have these little competitions. 🙂

 

Thanks for calling in.

 

Hugs 🙂

 

Lauren

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A box for little cards…..

Hello Everyone,

 

Recently I got myself a Martha Stewart Score Board, now I know it is in imperial and I am a metric girl, but you know it really does not matter…. it has lines just everywhere…. and it cam with the envelope triangle thingie too!!!

 

So I made a couple of rosettes and a box, just because I could, and you don’t even really have to measure anything, it is all done for you.

 

 

So how cool is this??? The box is upside down in the photo, but if I rotate it, Teddy gets to be hanging from the roof and he is not good at that.

 

I know I have MFT rosette dies, but it is almost simpler to use the scoreboard.  I got it at over 50% off, no resistance needed.

 

The box has versamark resist inked with Ranger Distress Ink.  So easy, so effective.

 

See you again tomorrow!! hugs 🙂

 

Lauren

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Mini Notepads and Altered Clips…

Hello Everyone!!

 

Friday already, the best day of the week!! Do you have your Friday smilie face on?? Looking forward to the weekend with wonderful plans?? I am going to the beach, now don’t be surprised or shocked, you and I both know that the sand is not nice to me, but I can go to the beach without walking on it.  I am going to sit at those lovely picnic tables over there and have hot fish and chips.  Yay!!

 

So with that in mind I have a little something that Lisa (you know my friend Lisa) from the Crafting Cottage has got me making and what a wonderful idea they are.  These would make a fantastic gift.

 

 

Lisa asked me if I had bulldog clips and I said yes but only little ones and she said they are perfect!!!

 

So I made this cute little note holder, isn’t it cute??

 

And then I made a bigger one, cos I do not write small when I write notes, big writing = big note paper.

 

 

I like this one better, it is bigger, has a flower on it and I really like it.

 

The bases are cut from chipboard and covered with patterned paper.  The clip is covered with paper and embellished and placed on the hand cut note sheets.  Then I have further embellished the holder.

 

Well I hope you have enjoyed seeing these.

 

Thanks for calling in.

 

Hugs

 

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Stocking stuffers!!

Hello Everyone,

 

How close is Christmas getting now, someone said twelve more sleeps, would that be right?? So close and I suppose I have plans in place to be ready or not.  You know Christmas will come whether I am ready or not, don’t you??

 

Well I have been making some Stocking Stuffers for a challenge over on MIU so I will show you a couple.  You can try to guess if one of these is for you, but I am not sure who they are for.

 

 

How cute are they??? So easy to make pretty things for putting little gifts inside, and you know how much I love giving things away…. oh my.  But I am not sure I am a fan of the commercial aspects of Christmas.  I prefer to give gifts to those I care about when I want to because I think of them, not because of a time of year that we all received the greatest gift ever and that is what I think we should celebrate.

 

Off my soapbox, have a great day and enjoy yourselves.  Love you all.

 

Oh Oh Oh, many of you loved my tip of the week yesterday so that may just continue if I can think of nifty things you might like to know.

 

Hugs

 

 

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