Flying Unicorn challenges!

Did you know that we have at least 10 challenges going on at the Flying Unicorn every month, and often more than that?  And did you know that all of our challenges have a randomly chosen winner to receive a great RAK from the Flying Unicorn store?

If you know me very well, you know that I love to write and I can go on and on and on maybe even you wish I would shut up, LOL!!  And you know I love to design a good challenge, one that pulls you out of your comfort zone, that's why we call them challenges, right?

My challenge, I've been waiting forever...

I am in the mood to read your stories this month so I want you to do a little journaling!  I know, most people don't like to journal but really you need to get those stories down on paper because one day you aren't going to remember them!!

The challenge is to do a layout, easy right?  Ah ha, you must also include some journaling and you must use the words "I've been waiting forever" somewhere in your journaling.  You can hide your journal or put it on the page, either is ok. Mine is hidden in a pocket on the left side, as you can see it is a long story.

Here's my inspiration for you.

The journal:

I’ve been waiting forever to see this plant bloom!

Right after we moved to Alaska, one of the gals that Dick worked with gave us some house plant cuttings.  One of the things she gave us was a member of the cactus family, a night bloom cereus.  We’ve always called it the ugly plant though because, well, it’s kinda ugly!  Of course in Alaska it didn’t get a lot of sun since our house was on 2 wooded acres and then there’s that whole winter dark thing going on in Fairbanks! 

However, it managed to live through the five years we spent in Fairbanks and when it came time to move we discovered that although it was an ugly plant, we had become rather attached to it so we wanted to take it with us.  But as moving goes, there was no room for it so we decided we would put in Dick’s Model T which was going inside a dark trailer that we were towing to our new home in Denver. We figured it might live and it was worth a try as there was no where else to put it.  I was elate when, three weeks later, I unloaded it from the “T” to find it very much alive.  Not only is that plant ugly, it’s very hardy!

After that long dark trip, I thought what the plant needed now was a sun bath so I left it outside in the hot Denver sun.  Hmmmm, that was not a good idea, it promptly got sunburned!  Oh but that plant is hardy, it survived that too.  Well now, for the next 8 years the ugly plant lived on in a dark corner in our Denver home.  It didn’t look all that great, but it was hanging in there.

Now in NC we have a lovely windowed corner and I thought the ugly plant would be very happy there and so it was!  For the first time in its life it was thriving, loving the daily dose of sunshine. Finally in 2011 in blessed us with two blooms.  I was so excited but unfortunately, the blooms open only once and only at night.  Well, do you think we got to see those two blooms open???  Noooo, of course not, we go to bed with the chickens so of course we are not awake in the dead of the night when the blooms open.

In 2012 we had four blooms on the plant.  Well I contained my excitement knowing that I would most likely sleep right through the blossoms opening.  But then the magic happened, a good friend from Florida had just arrived at our house and we were chatting in the living room when all of a sudden I interrupted everyone exclaiming, look, look, the blossoms are open!  The blossoms were a lovely creamy white and at least 6” across.  It was a long wait, 17 years to be exact, but well worth it, I’ve never seen anything lovelier!

 

I used the December kit to do this LO, I loved the embossed papers in the kit-this is the one with the birdcages on it.  I lightly sanded it to bring out the embossed images.

 

Supplies:

Patterned paper:  Ruby Rock-it Mother Nature collection:  Frame Royale, Birdcage embossed-Mother Nature embossed, Diamond print-flutterby, nusic pp-harmony, dotted-pensive

Letters:  Thickers foam Subway  (from a previous kit)

Diecuts and punches: Spellbinders Bella Rose die and stamps for Heartfelt Creations

Flowers:    Manor House blue, DA celestial white

Ink:  Distress pumice stone, weathered wood

Mist:  Lindy’s Ponderosa Pines Olive, Glimmer Mist Snowy Pine

Other:  Pink Paislee Artisan Elements (circles)

 

And here is the RAK you could win, all you have to do is play in the challenge for a chance to win!

 

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!

Ruby Rock-it from Australia - Flying Unicorn

One of the things that I really love about Flying Unicorn is the unique  products that the owner, Alda, tries to stock in the store.  She is always scouring the globe looking for the next great paper line.  This week we are featuring Ruby Rock-it papers from Australia and they are 10% off through January 22nd.

I did three layouts using the fabulous Avalon collection from Ruby Rock-it.These are a great heavy weight paper perfect for misting, distressing and inking, all those things we like to do to our paper. This first layout is a vintage picture of my grandparents probably taken in the 50's or maybe even earlier. I have so many wonderful vintage photos, unfortunately, most of them are not labeled as to the who or the when.

I started with a white paper, Celestial, from the collection and gave it a quick spritz with Cadillac pink Glimmer Mist. Then I cut a 10" square from Fantasy and used my Wild Flowers Martha Stewart punch to punch all around the page. Since the photo and Dusty Attic bracket frame cover the center of the paper, I fussy cut some of the flowers from the center of the page and tucked them behind on the upper left and right side of my layout. Behind the photo and filling to the edges of the DA frame is a green paper, Illusion.

The Dusty Attic frame is painted with Distress picket fence Crackle paint and then lightly inked with Distress pumice stone.

I used two rubons verses on the left and right, the butterflies are also rubons, all from Ruby Rock-it. From my stash I added the Prima canvas resist floral spray and birdcage. These are resist treated so you just ink with Distress in to bring out the details. The flowers are mostly Primas .

To finish off this layout, I added two special pieces that were given to me by a couple of our Unicorn members! The beautiful white butterfly was crocheted by our Cathi and is really perfect for this layout as it reminds me of the crocheted pieces that my grandmother did. That fabulous cameo was made for me by Tammy and I so appreciate it!!

Well I had that string of beads laying around and, I don't know, it just looked good tossed onto the layout so there you go, not alot of careful thought there, LOL!!

This next layout is of me and my sweetheart. I used Ruby Rock-it's diecut Stitch, Daydream in the center, and the base page is Noble. The tattered green under the diecut is Illusion.

I used a Dusty Attic Holly Flourish on this that I misted with Lindy's Starburst Yellow Rose of Texas.

I also used some Ruby Rock-it rubons here, the flowers and butterflies. The two larger flowers are handmade using McGill's Floriano and EK Success Retro Flower punches. The pearl accents are Ruby Rock-it embellies.

I wanted to mimic the circle pattern in the diecut so I used molding paste and a mask to dress up my center paper. You can see this technique in my tutorial here.

The title Always is a Making Memories Eclectic Metal that I mounted on a Tattered Banner diecut from Alterations as is the hand written sentiment under the photo.

And finally I leave you with these two cuties, Nika and Jen (aka Jrabs, Escape Kitty's Mom). Jen and some of othre favorite scrappy friends visited us last September and she and Nika fell in love!! I just adore this picture of them, it is soooo sweet!!

The papers I used are all from Ruby Rock-it Avalon, Melody-pink frame, Mysterious - floral (my favorite sheet in the collection!), and Illusion- green border strip. The flower is a Petaloo velvet and the greenery is a Sizzix diecut. Again I used Prima Resistant canvas for the chair inked with Distress Bundled Sage.

There's some Dusty Attic Fancy Trim #3 peaking out from under the lacy flowers trim from Hobby Lobby that I painted with Shimmerz pink paint. I added some heart lace from Hobby Lobby and Pink Paislee Mistable letters inked with Victorian Velvet.

Thanks for visiting!  Be sure to check out all the Ruby Rock-it lines!