The Flying Unicorn Blog Hop!!

THE UNICORN WAY - Fourth Stop in the Hop

If you came to my blog by way of Shona's blog, then you are on the right trail!  If not, then you need to go back here, at the Flying Unicorn blog and get started.

For 24 hours only, today, July 2,  hop along with the Creative Team from the Flying Unicorn.  Today we want to inspire you and give you an early glimpse of our fabulous July KOM, Once Upon a Memory.  Alda puts a kit together like no other!  In addition to being filled with paper and great, unique, embellishments, the kit also includes a OTP project!  The kit goes on sale tonight at 12:01 AM July 3rd EST in the Flying Unicorn Store. There are no sign ups for our kit, it is first come, first serve. We believe that Scrapbooking should be a passion, not an obligation .

One week prior to release, the Creative Team shares sneak peeks on the forums, giving you a glimpse of what's to come on the 3^rd of each month .

Today, July 2^nd we decided not only to give you a few more sneak peeks :

We're also going to give you a close up of some of the things in the main kit.  Now you have to check everyone's blog to see all the closeups!

You can see some of this in one of my sneek peaks!

Are you drooling yet, LOL?!!  Well we are just being naughty this month and so I'm going to show you a LO that I did using the Once Upon a Memory, the July KOM.  Here is my baby, Nika, when she was  9 months old after her very first grown up haircut.  Just in case you are interested, poodle babies have very fine silky puppy hair and it tangles something fierce!  Their adult hair is the kinky hair that we associate with poodles and it doesn't tangle nearly as badly, that being said, I spend way more on my poodle's haircare products than I do on my own! 

Now we have a very special Grand Prize for this blog hop, OMG, you want to win this!!  Its a Tim Holtz Vagabond.

Now you're going to have to work a little for a chance at the Vagabond Grand Prize.  Keep reading...

Every month on the forums we run challenges to inspire you, sometimes teach you something, and keep the creative mojo working. Challenges are a great way to expand your style and expand your scrappy repetoire and make wonderful new friends while you're doing it!

I have two challenges going this month in the challenges forum:

Oh you know they've been talking about Christmas coming and all that in the forums, making me crazy!!!  I am so not into Christmas this time of year!  Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas, but could we wait until say November to get all excited about it?!!  So I'm hosting a "IT'S NOT CHRISTMAS" challenge.  I bet everyone has tons of unused Christmas scrapping paper and so I want you to do a project using ONLY Christmas themed paper and traditional colored red and green, black, white and cream cardstock, BUT you must use a photo that is obviously NOT a Christmas photo.  The project must not remotely look like Christmas.

Here's my example LO to inspire you and show you that my challenge can be done!  I used the Bo Bunny Father Christmas and Kaisercraft December 25th collections for this LO.  Head on over to the challenges forum to learn all about this challenge.

 

The other challenge I am hosting in July is "Out with the Old, no (w)hording allowed!"  This is a LO only challenge and you must use paper that is at least a year old and you have to use at least 3 embellies that you have been hoarding, just because hoarding is what we do!!  I have used Glitz Love Games pps, my hoarded embellies are the red heart, the black clock face and the black corner rubon, they all date back to at least 2006 or 2007.

Click here for the challenge forum to learn more about my challenges and the rest of the Creative Team's challenges.

Now we're getting to the good part, LOL!!  If you want to win the Vagabond, here's what you have to do.

1. Write down my name, Maggi, and MY special word POODLE - you will need this at the end of the hop not only to win the Vagabond, but also for a chance to win my RAK pictured below.

2.  Make sure you leave a comment on my blog AND all of the Creative Team members' blogs excluding the Flying Unicorn blog (cause you can't leave comments there)

3.  Be a follower of all the creative team members on this blog hop.

4.Write down the email address cs@flyingunicornllc.com, you will need it at the end of this hop!

Hop on over to Laura's blog to find out more and get the rest of the rules!

More from the April KOM from the Flying Unicorn!

Have I told you yet how much I LOVE this kit??  LOL, I love the diversity of the kit, the soft romantic colors paired with the masculine burlap look papers from Glitz, makes for such a great kit that has so many possibilites.   I have done 9 layouts with this kit!!  Here is my latest layout.This is the 3rd layout I've done with the Glitz French Kiss and Pretty in Pink papers.  Have to say that French Kiss is one of my favorite paperlines from CHA winter 2012.   I made the rosettes, I love using those on a masculine page.  One thing to note, you do not need the mini rosette die to make smaller rosettes, simply trim off part of the diecut from the straight edge side and cut off a few segments and presto, you have a mini rosette.  They look great stacked as I have done here on two of the rosettes.  I love that look!  The Dusty Attic piece and Petaloo Cantebury vine spray are from my stash as are the key, wheel and button.  Everything else is from the kit.  I cut the letters from cardstock and popped them up to give them a stronger appearance.  I bundled up some string to make the string bow, I like how that looks!

Here are a couple closeups:




 Oh gosh, I almost forgot the most important thing!!! I used that FABULOUS sketch of Shona's to make this LO!!!  We have had a lot of fun teasing Shona about her sketch!  It was never intended to be shown as a sketch, but was a quick drawing Shona did for her own use.  She made one fatal error, she sent it to Alda, oops!!  That totally boomaranged and now this famous sketch is supporting a sketch challenge at the Flying Unicorn this month.  And wow, the LOs done with this sketch are great!

More from the April Flying Unicorn KOM

Wow, with the paper addon to the April kit you can make so many LOs, cards, etc. whatever your please is.  I think I have made 8 layouts so far  and I can still get at least a couple more out of the kit!

ON this first LO I used a Prima mask and molding paste on the right side to add some interest and texture to the cardstock.  I used a sheet of Arbor Ruby Rock-It from he August Moon collection and a strip sheet from Meg's Garden on this layout.  Lots of border punching too, all with martha Stewart punches.  Everything on this page except the letters and leaves came in the April kit.  It really is an awesome kit - so many great things you can do with it.  Those gorgeous blooms are Manor House, aren't they just lucious?  Oh yes, the little girl is me with my baby brother, photo from 1957.  Hmmm I need to add that little detail to my layout!

My bff's and I decided to celebrate our 40th year by taking a trip to the wine country of California.  We spent a week there sampling the wine and just having fun!!  Again I used Ruby Rock-It August Moon papers on this combined with a sheet from the Fabscraps Organic collection.  I particularly love that Dusty Attic piece (from my stash), it was so perfect for this LO.  I painted it with acrylic paints, smooch paint on the grapes which I then stickled.

One of the things I really love about this kit is the diversity of the papers included.  The Glitz French Kiss and Pretty in Pink papers really worked well together.   This is a photo of my Mom's sister, Elsie.  I made the peach flowers from Core'dinations cardstock (included in the kit) using a McGill Floriano punch.  I especially love the lace that came in the kit, its sooooo feminine.

This layout is also done with a combination of the August Moon and Organic collections.  They work sooooo well together!  I added the Dusty Attic piece and Family embellie from my stash. The journal reads:

Mom and her brother, Alex.  I often called Uncle Alex my Uncle Daddy because in many ways, he was a father to us when my Dad had to be overseas without us.  Dad did two one-year assignments in Vietnam and a year in Korea, and six month in Nepal.  During these times we always returned to NC so that we would be among our families.  Uncle Alex always helped Mom find a place to live and he was always there with a strong shoulder for Mom to lean on.  One house that we lived in was so close to his office that he stopped in nearly everyday for coffee and just to check on us. 

This layout is a companion page to Tobacco Road that I revealed yesterday.  I wanted to tell the story of raising tobacco here in NC as it is was such an important part of the economy here.  My greandparents on both sides were tobacco farmers.  I am from a rural area of NC and farming is what everyone did back in the day.  Here's the journal if you'd like to know a little something about "barning tobacco" as we call it.

“Barning tobacco” was hard dirty work.  Tobacco ripens from the bottom of the stem up and the first pickings of the season are the toughest.  The field hands spent their days stooped over, picking the bottom leaves from the stems and placing them in a wooden cart that was hauled up and down the rows by a mule or horse.  As the season wore on, the work got a little better in that picking the leaves further up the stem didn’t require so much stooping.

When the cart is filled it is taken to the tobacco barn to be strung on poles for later placement inside the barn.  The barn usually had a shed off the side where the “stringers” and “handers” did their work.  The handers gathered 3 or 4 leaves of tobacco together and handed them off to the stringer who then looped the tobacco with string onto a pole.  When the pole was full it was hung there in the shed until the end of the day. 

Green tobacco is really sticky and leaves a gummy substance on your hands.  We had to use Lava soap, which is harsh and gritty, to get our hands clean.  Imagine how much dirt and sand is stuck to those first leaves coming off the bottom of the stalks.  Don’t forget that here in the hot southern summer, it is humid and often 95º or higher.  I’d call this a true recipe for misery!

At the end of the day, the field hands passed the poles of strung tobacco into the barn where it was hung to dry and cure.  The barns had furnaces, often oil fired, to speed the curing process.

When I was growing up in the sixties, the field hands were paid 75¢ an hour and the handers and stringers were paid 50¢ an hour.  The handers and stringers were female and the field hands were male.   These were the summer jobs available for kids in those days, I guess you could call it character building!  Today, barning tobacco is a whole different process and now most of the laborers are migrant farm workers.  I think it would do our youth a lot of good to put down their assorted electronic devices and engage in some manual labor, perhaps building some good character like that of our mothers and fathers, many of whom  grew up where manual labor was just part of the daily routine.

I  used Lindy's Cattail Copper Brown and  Gator Gumbo Olive mist stains to color the Dusty Attic piece.  I just dabbed it on and it gave such a pretty patina effect.  I painted the Copper Brown onto the roses.  I love the old metallic effect.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, I really appreciate it!  I hope your day is scrap filled and fantastic!!

Flying Unicorn April KOM

I know I keep saying this, but seriously, the April kit is just so incredibly gorgeous and its the best kit ever!  I think what impressed me most about this kit is that it is so full of goodies, it's really an incredible value.  There's a beautiful sampling of papers from Glitz, Ruby Rock-it, mini papers from Meg's Garden,  and Fabscraps all coordinated to complement each other.   Then there's the OH MY GOSH, how cool is that, wooden birdhouse just waiting for you to decorate. Alda has selected a wonderful fusion of flowers and embellishments that will go perfectly with the the papers.  When I get my kit, its a complete suprise package and I am so amazed at all that comes out of the box!  There are two paper add-ons this month as well as a flower add-on.  If you can swing it, you are really going to want the patterned paper add-on because it is additional papers that coordinate with those in the kit.  Of course if you've got some spare change, well you're going to want ALL the addons!!

This is the first layout I did with the kit and it is my favorite.  The photo is one that I recently took in the Everglades while vacationing in Florida.  The bird is a Snowy Egret showing his breeding plumage.  He is really such a beautiful bird.

I used Ruby Rock-It papers from the August Moon collection, these papers are so soft and pretty.  I added a few things from my stash to this layout, the Dusty Attic pieces, the Prima resin bridge and greenery.  That fabulous fence is wooden and comes in the main kit.  It's a nice length too, I used it on several LOs and have a little piece left still!

Closeups:

I love Glitz papers and their most recent collections did not disappoint!  The kit has a meld of papers from the French Kiss and Pretty in Pink collections.  I used papers from both collections on this layout.  The photo is probably from around 1951 and shows a group of ladies "barning tobacco" as we say it here in the south.  They are handing the tobacco freshly picked from the fields to a stringer, who is stringing the leaves onto a pole in preparation for going into the barn to cure.  I added the fabric burlap and cork from my stash.  The cork was a sample coaster than I got at a Home Show from a cork flooring mfg!  I knew it would look good on a layout some day!  I made the flowers using Alterations Tattered Floral die. 

I really love how the letters look. They are shiny black Thickers that came in the kit, and I just didn't think they looked quite right on my layout. So I scuffed them up with my sanding block and then inked with walnut stain. I think its a perfect look for this page.

Here is the way cool OTP project!  I used papers and embellies from my stash for this as I wanted to keep the kit papers to use on layouts.  The little birds perched in the doorways did come in the kit and they are just what my birdhouse needed!

Here's one more that I did with the kit.  It's a mix of Fabscraps, Ruby Rock-It and Meg's Garden.  I added a sheet of white cardstock, the one fuschia colored flower  and the Dusty Attic pieces from my stash to this LO.  The leafy vines are cut with the Spellbinders Heartfelt Creations Bella Rose die and stamped with a matchng HC stamp.  I got out my Martha Stewart punches and kind of went crazy!

I'll have more kit creations to share with you this week so be sure to stop by again and even more important, visit the store to get your kit.  It goes on sale tonight, at 12:01 am, April 3.  I know you're going to love this  kit!!

Thanks for stopping by, I really appreciate it!

Glitz Designs - Beautiful Dreamer

Here's another fabulous collection from Glitz Designs.  I think we're going to be seeing and using alot of Glitz this fall!!  All 3 collections are just incredibly yummy!  For your chance to win, be sure to head over to the Glitz Designs blog and follow the instructions!

Glitz Designs - Dance in Sunshine, new papers

I really love what Glitz has been doing lately and they've got  some awesome new papers coming out this summer.  Look at these gorgeous colors! I can't wait to get my hands on this collection!

And best of all, Glitz is giving away the entire collection to some lucky person!!  For your chance to win, go to the Glitz blog and find out how you can have a chance to win this fabulous collection.

Sketch challenge - Glitz Designs

I love this pretty sketch at the Glitz Designs blog and who wouldn't want to win some of their fabulous papers?  So I did this layout to enter in the sketch challenge.  The photo is of me when I was 3 or 4 years old, taken outside our home in Verdun, France, where my father was stationed in the US Army.  That is my very first dog, Mary Jane, a life long love affair with canines must have been born there in France!

I used the gorgeous Laced with Grace collection from Glitz for this LO.  It is one of my very favorite paper lines ever followed closely by Love Games.  I misted and inked the masked images using Tattered Angels branches mask on the circle and Prima mask on the plaid pp.  I used a Martha Stewart leafy corner punch to punch around the circle. 

Thanks for stopping by,  I really appreciate it and a special thanks for when you leave comments.  I love reading the comments and am humbled by your kindness and appreciation of my work.

Your Beautiful Life - Dusty Attic June sketch challenge

My Mother, unfortunately the early photos aren't dated, but I think the one on the left is circa 1930, the middle 1946-1948. I imagine the center photo was taken at Easter since she is wearing a corsage, they did that back then and there are a number of EAster photos. The other thing is to look at the lovely suit she is wearing. I am sure that she sewed it. My mother was an incredible seamstress and made all my clothes when I was growing up. She tailored sports jackets for my Dad, what a talent she had, I did not inherit her love of sewing!!


I used the the beautiful Glitz Love Games for this LO.  I love the poppy red in these papers.  I made the red poppies, see my poppy tut, link on my sidebar.  The wonderful swirly leaves are cut with a Heartfelt Creations/Spellbinders die.  The black swirls are stamped images.  They are Inkadinkadoo and I  got them at Michaels.  I like them, I bet you will see them again! 

Oh the Dusty Attic chipboard colum and pot with the ferns.  They are so lovely and add the perfect touch fo class to a layout.  I painted the column first with a whitewash of acrylic antique white.  Then I used biscotti perfect pearls to paint inside the column and the accents on the column.  The pot was painted first with a good coat of biscotti perfect pearls.  After that dried I took a very find paintbrush and lightly painted random lines with capuccino perfect pearls to imitate marbling.  After that dried I added a coat of Crackle Accents which i discovered does not stick very well to perfect pearls so I painted over it all with Diamond Glaze and it seems to be holding just fine.  I also added some gold perfect pearls to accentuate the design on the pot.
Ther fern leaves are also Dusty Attic and they have been coated with Olive Vine Glimmer Mist.

Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope all your days are stellar!!

Night Blooming Cactus

When I lived in Florida, many years ago, we had a huge night blooming cactus in our yard.  The blossoms would open up at night and closed before morning.  I took this photo using time lapse and  multiple flashes.  I also took the picture using slide film so this is a scan from a slide.  The scan wasn't all that great so I played around in PS and added some special effects.

The papers are from the May Swirlydoos kit, Grandma's Garden, featuring Glitz Laced with Grace collection.  I think this is one of my favorite paper lines ever.  sure am glad I ordered an extra pp and CS !

I started with a sheet of pale yellow Bazzill, I wantedt o add some white elements to tie in to the blooms so I stamped flourishes on the Bazzill and heat embossed with white embossing powder.    The black flourishes at the bottom are printed on a transparency (thank you Robin @ Swirlydoos for the images!).  The flowers are layered Petaloo Color Me Crazy sprayed with a pearly whie Smooch.  I love the Petaloo vines that are accented with gold.  I also printed the title on a transparency and glued it to the Websters journal card.

Life Lessons - Sketches: Creatively Yours

Yesterday was a bust!  My wireless went wonky so I spent the day without the internet, GASP!!  You have no idea how hard that was! Thankfully, everything is again functional.

I wanted to share this layout with you that I made using the May Swirlydoos kit, Grandmas's Garden, and a sketch from Ali at Sketches: Creatively Yours.

The May kit is so awesome, it features Glitz Laced with Grace as well as papers from Crafters Workshop and K & Co Ancestry.  I've done everything from heritage LOs to nature LOs. On this layout I've used paper from all three lines as well as some Bazzill cardstock.  There are PRima flowers and a couple handmade flowers too.

But on to Ali's sketch.  I must admit that when I first looked at it, I thought, eek, 5 pictures?  But then I said, oh I can do that and off I went and found this great series of photos of bison that we saw along the road on our drive to Alaska last summer.  I love the resulting LO and thank you Ali for the great sketch!!

Family Tree - Glitz Laced with Grace

Glitz totally has my number with their Laced with Grace collection and our May Swirlydoos kit featured this fabulous line!  I used our May sketch provided in our kit by Beggahuna for this layout.  After I finished it, I had that bright orange circle cutout left from something and I just picked it up and laid in on the LO, well it was perfect to draw the eye to this wonderful heritage photo so added it to my LO.

 The colors and the papers are just so vibrant and rich in this line.  They are just perfect for the heritage LOs that I have been working on.  These are my mother's father's parents, that makes them my great grandparents.  Those awesome swirly vines on the right are a  new Spellbinders die made for Heartfelt Creations.  There is also a matching stamp that I must get.  The gold key and leafy vines are Dusty Attic, oh how I love Dusty Attic!! 

Thank you everyone who is following my blog!!  I appreciate it more than you'll ever know.  Only 35 more followers to go until I give away that wonderful Love Games blog candy!  Tell your friends to come over, I need to give that away before I dive into it, LOL~!!

Glitz Love Games - Love Birds

I REALLY love this line from Glitz, Love Games!!!  Red is my favorite color anyway so this line just "speaks" to me!  Its a red with a hint of orange to it, but  oh so pretty!!  Be sure to be a follower of my blog if you are not already, for a chance to win a RAK of Love Games.  Details of my giveaway HERE.

This is a picture of my parents, they have always been so crazy about each other that Love Birds just seemed like a good title.  The photo was taken on an Easter Sunday back in the 40's.  I made the flowers and I have a tut posted (look on the sidebar) if you are interested.  The birdcage was diecut with the Alterations die, painted with Distress Bronze crackle paint and then inked with distress black soot.

The vine on the right is Dusty Attic Vine Flourish DA0485 (there's one just like it in my Giveaway) painted with acrylic paints, then glimmer mist (Tattered Leather on the stems) and finally a coat of Diamond Glaze.
The title is also on a Dusty Attic piece, Vintage Nameplate DA0463 that I painted with vintage white acrylic paint and Diamond Glaze. 

At the top I have stamped with a brick wall stamp.  Thanks to Denise for turning us on to that awesome stamp!!

Thanks for stopping by!  Be sure to become a follower for a chance to win my RAK!

Fall at Denali National Park

Well I really loved the Swirlydoo's April kit that showcased Bo Bunny's Gabrielle but I think I love this May kit with Glitz Laced with Grace at least as much!!  The oranges and olives so perfectly offset each other and the colors are so vibrant, I really love it!!

This is a picture I took in 1997 of a grizzly bear fattening up on berries for the coming winter.  I took these pictures in September on a beautiful fall day.  In September, winter is just around the corner and it can snow anyday.  In fact, I have been at Denali in September when there was snow on the ground.

I really had fun making the flowers and leaves on this layout as I tried out my new Moonshadow mists on the leaves.  It really does give them a beautiful patina look.  AND something new I have discovered, I bought a set of 16 pearl watercolors at Michael's for a whopping $5 and used it to paint my flowers.  Really gives an effect similar to Glimmer mist but it's easier and a lot cheaper!!  I used the paints on the orange flowers.  The green flowers were sprayed with olive glimmer mist.  The Dusty Attic vine is painted with acrylics and then glazed with Diamond Glaze.  I like Diamond Glaze better than Glossy Accents, its a little thinner and therefore brushes on nicer.  It seems to have the same glue qualities as Glossy Accents too.

I used the May sketch at Dusty Attic for this layout and I'm entering it in their sketch challenge.  Also made the layout for Glitz Challenge #2.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!  I appreciate the time it takes and I'd love you to leave a comment so I'll know that you were here!

My Aunt

Oh the May Swirlydoos kit is just fabulous!!!  I love the rich colors!!  This is my dear Aunt Margaret for whom I was named.  She was the most amazing woman and I have so many wonderful memories of time spent with her.  I remember as if it were yesterday shopping at a fabric store when she and my grandmother taught me to sew.  We often played cribbage in the evenings when she came home from work  and sometimes I would win.  Wonder if she just let me win?

Journal:  I was named after Aunt Margaret but she always called me Princess. It really made me smile when looking through some of her photos of me and I found that she had labeled them on the back as “Princess.”

I think of Aunt Margaret as one of the pioneers of women’s liberation, not that she was involved in the movement; she just lived a liberated life. Throughout her life, she traveled the globe, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends.

She chose not to marry but in no way was she an “old maid.” She was engaged once but she found out that he was a two timing Mama’s boy so she sent him packing!

Aunt Margaret had a great job with NASA and attained a high pay grade for a female civil servant back in those days. Her NASA career began with NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) which was the precursor agency to NASA. One of my prized possessions gifted to me at her death is a large footed silver tray that is inscribed “from your friends at NASA 1973.”

My Grandmother lived with her in Hampton, VA, and I loved visiting them and helping to care for her beautiful rose garden. There were roses everywhere and in the evenings, we would clip them just as they started to open and fill the house with their fragrant beauty. They taught me to cook, sew, knit, and crochet.

I say she was liberated because she did so many things that woman just didn’t do back in her day. She achieved so much in her job and it speaks volumes that several of her male co-workers at NASA made a one-way 3-hour trip to attend her funeral, 30 years after she retired.

I used the beautiful May Swirlydoos kit for this layout that features Glitz Designs Laced with Grace collection.  The venetian lace at the top is from my stash that I sprayed with Olive Vine Glimmer Mist and the tiny bloomers around the photo are Tim Holtz sprayed with Yellow Daisy and Sunkissed Peach Glimmer Mist.  I also added the Prima SIIP.  Aunt Margaret had a large and beautiful rose garden so I thought these papers were just a perfect match for her photo.  TFL!!  I really appreciate your visit!