LLLC - CHA 2015 New Releases!...

It's not my usual day for a blog post, but this isn't a "usual" blog post...it's time to take a peek at some of the new products that La-La Land Crafts is debuting at the CHA 2015 show in Southern California this weekend!

Take a gander at all these fun new dies and stamps that you'll find in the "NEW!" section of the store, ready to order now...

Over the next few weeks I'll be featuring the new dies on my projects, but I have two to show you today that were made for display at the show. 

The first is a decor piece made for a nursery, featuring the new Stork, Rocking Horse, Hanging Hearts and Love Word Set, Small Lacy Border, and Moon & Stars Banner dies. I used mini wooden blocks covered with patterned papers and glued together with E6000 glue in a pyramid, and adorned it with all sorts of die cuts, flowers, and little treasures:

At the top, the Moon and Stars Banner was cut apart, the stars glittered with Stickles Silver, and glued to the blocks, just above the Stork, carrying his special delivery package...

The "baby" printed block is from the patterned paper pack used to cover the wooden blocks, and it was perfect to use with the new Hanging Hearts & Love Word Set! 

And at the bottom, the little Rocking Horse die cut sits above the new Small Lacy Border that's been topped with dotted ribbon...

Supplies:

New La-La Land Dies:  Stork,  Rocking Horse,  Hanging Hearts and Love Word Set,  

Small Lacy Border,  Moon & Stars Banner

Patterned papers:   Simple Stories "Hello Baby" collection

Flowers:   Wild Orchid Crafts            Pearl & crystal chick:   Prima

Ribbon:   Offray            Miscellaneous:   Silver Stickles, white craft paint

The second project is a shabby card all ready for Valentine's Day next month, featuring the new Hanging Hearts & Love Word Set,  Heart Fan, and  Open Hearts Doily Border dies...

The new Heart Fan die was nestled on top of the new Open Hearts Doily Border on the left side of the card, and down the center, tiny white roses mixed with pink Cherry Blossom Flowers sitting atop a couple Berry Flourish die cuts...

The new Hanging Hearts & Love Word Set dies were used both at the top and bottom for the sentiment and as an accent in lower corner...

Supplies:

New La-La Land Crafts Dies:  Hanging Hearts & Love Word Set,  Heart Fan,  Open Hearts Doily Border

Existing La-La Land Crafts Dies:   Berry Flourish,  Cherry Blossom Flowers

Patterned papers:  My Minds Eye Lost & Found Heirloom collection

Roses:   Wild Orchid Crafts          Pearls:   Recollections            Miscellaneous:   cheesecloth

Thanks for stopping by today! Be sure to check out the La-La Land Crafts Inspiration Blog to catch a peek at more of the projects the team has made with the new dies and stamps being released at the show this week...I'm sure you'll love the new releases as much as we do!

LLLC - Halloween and Christmas/Winter Release Fun!...

Sit back and grab a cup of your favorite beverage (and maybe a snack or two), and stay a bit...it's a fun and photo-heavy post today showing off the latest release from La-La Land Crafts!  It's Halloween and Christmas/Winter release time, and the Wednesday LLLC team has some fun creations to share with you.

I'll start off with my Halloween project...it's a haunted birdhouse using the Birdhouse with Base Kit all "spooked up" and ready for new residents. It's sitting on a wooden spool base ("permanently borrowed" from a roll of burlap ribbon from my stash, and painted with black chalk paint)...

and here's a quick little tour all around the sides and back (I brightened up these photos a bit so you could see the details...IRL this is a pretty dark and spooky little house!)...

On the front of the house, I added one of the new Stitched Nested Circles dies around the scalloped chipboard piece that comes with the birdhouse kit. It adds a bit of brightness to the otherwise dark and spooky birdhouse. :)

On the front and back eaves, I added a few of the new Spiderweb and Spider Dies, accenting the webs with a Gelly Roll Clear Star pen that sparkles when the light hits it just right (you can see the spider from this die set hanging from the eaves in the photo above)...

 

     

Adding the Wrought Iron Fence was a lot of fun.  I intentionally "leaned" it as I adhered it against the base, and added strips of knotted heavy-duty thread to make it look as though the fence was wired together to hold it up. Beacon 3-in-1 glue was used as an embellishment this time, by adding bits of glue here and there, and when dry, scraping it with the tips of small scissors to distress it and make it look more like "globs of goo" on the fence.

Inside the fencing, on the two front corners, are the new Tombsones, also propped crookedly, as if they've been there for a very, very long time...

And last but not least, the roofing got a bit of detailing with some colored mica bits...

Supplies:

LLLC Kits:   Birdhouse with Base Kit

LLLC Dies:   Wrought Iron Fence,  Stitched Nested Circles,  Spider Web and Spider,  Tombstones

Patterned papers:   Authentique "Enchanted";  Graphic45 "Halloween in Wonderland"

Flowers:   Wild Orchid Crafts and local craft store

Bird and ribbon spool:   local craft store

Miscellaneous:   Gelly Roll Clear Star pen,  cheesecloth,  Beacon 3-in-1 liquid adhesive, Folk Art Home Decor Chalk Paint

I'm not done just yet...next up is a shabby and fun Christmas card using many of the new dies...

On the left side, the focal point is a triple-cut and layered tree using the new Fancy Christmas Tree Die - it's sprinkled lightly with glittery Stickles, embellished with a strip of ribbon covered in mica flakes, and adorned with a topper of pearls and a crinkled seam binding bow...

At the base of the tree, banners cut from the new  Stitched Elements die set hold the rub-on sentiment...

The oval cutout in the center was also made using a die from the new Stitched Elements set, and inside it, the new Snowflake Banner shining over the new Christmas Hill Border...

Supplies:

LLLC Dies:   Stitched Elements, Fancy Christmas Tree, Christmas Hill Border, Snowflake Banner

Patterned papers:   Pink Paislee Cottage Farms

Sentiment:  Tim Holtz "Christmastime" rubon set            Laces:   local craft store

Miscellaneous:   Hug Snug seam binding,  Frantage Shaved Ice Fragments,   Diamond Stickles

Here are all the NEW Release products that are in the store right now...

You can see many more creations using the new release products over on the La-La Land Crafts blog.

Thanks so much for stopping by for a visit today!

TSTR - Favorite Project

Well, the holiday season is winding down, and soon the pretty decorations and lights will be packed up and put away for another year.  But for now, we're getting a few more days of enjoyment from them...the tree is still lit up in the living room, and will be that way until New Year's Day.

I haven't had much time the past couple weeks to craft in the Korner, so this week's challenge at The Shabby Tea Room  is perfect for me. This week's host, Lenet, is asking us to pick out our favorite project we created for any of the Shabby Tea Room's challenges for 2012.

Although it was a little hard to choose among a few of my favorite projects, I realized that one of my most favorite was one of my latest creations...the Christmas mini album I created for the Sweet Shabby Christmas challenge in November, while I was a guest designer (and which also happened to be another challenge that Lenet hosted).

You can find my original November blog post here, and in December I posted detailed photos of all the finished inside pages here, along with a little "candy box" I made to sit alongside the album on the side table.

Thanks for visiting today.  I hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

May Your Days Be Merry...

Background Image Source

It's Christmas eve...all the hustle and bustle is done here...and now it's time for quiet celebration.

But before I go, I'd like to share with you the gift box I made for my mother's gift.  You've most likely seen these little papier mache "cottages" around the Web the past couple years, but this is the first year I've had the right sized box for the right sized gift!

This time, I used what I call the "medium" size house, and it fit the box for the gift just perfectly. It started like this...

This box measures 5-1/2"W x 4"D x 7"H (the top simply lifts off, making it easy to "unwrap" a present). Once decorated, it came out like this...

The front door and curtained windows are made with Papertrey Ink stamps.  Those little white plant urns are actually buttons that came in an assorted pack from the craft store.  The "ferns" are branch punches...and the "brick step" was constructed from a piece of cardstock that was run through the Big Shot using the Tim Holtz brick embossing folder (inked up first with Pumice Stone Distress Ink to provide the contrast detail) and glued to the front of the box/house.  

I got the idea for the "sugared" button roof from Melissa Phillips' blog last year...there are about 95 assorted white buttons covering the front and back of the roof/box top, all then covered with coarse clear glitter.  I used that particular crocheted trim around the dormer because I love the way the shadows remind me of icicle shadows.

Thanks so much for visiting.  I wish you a Merry Christmas!

  

Finishing What I Started...

I hope all my American friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!  We had a fun and busy one, with family visiting from out of state, and a couple get-togethers with friends over the weekend.  And now we're full swing into Christmas around here (although the tree isn't quite finished yet).

Earlier this month, I showed this partially finished mini album that was made up for a challenge at The Shabby Tea Room.

But before I show you the now-completed inside pages, here's a little star box I made to sit next to the album on the table.  It's made using craft-store supplies - a round papier mache box, a wooden spool, a wooden circle, and a grapevine wreath, covered in papers and laces to blend with the album front.  I left the box lid removeable, so I can put some wrapped candies inside for those "sweet attacks" that happen so often during the holidays...

Before doing anything else, I painted the box and wooden pieces with white craft paint as a base. Some older Basic Grey papers were decoupaged to the box (inside and out are finished), and the wooden spool.  I lightly glittered the grapevine wreath, and wrapped a strand of white pearls around it to mimic the wreath on the album front.  To secure the wreath to the (painted) wooden circle, I used lots of hot glue...to camouflage the dull glue, I used Glossy Accents and large coarse clear glitter over the dried hot glue. Now it looks like a glittery moss beneath the wreath.

Of course, you know I had to glue lots of lace around the box edges, and the spool...LOL. Little pink pearls in the center of the scalloped lace flowers add an accent to the blue and white theme, and the scrunched seam binding bow and pink poinsettia on the top add a bit more.

The star is made of two medium-weight chipboard stars glued together...then covered with silver German glass glitter on the front, back, and side edges to camouflage the seam from the layers of chipboard. (It will be fun to watch this glitter tarnish over the years.)  Again, I had to use a good amount of hot glue to keep that star standing firm on the top of the box, so I covered the glue with coarse glitter.

And now, here are the finished inside pages for the "Believe" decorative mini album.  I'm glad I took the time now to finish this...I have this bad habit of putting things away to finish "later" and "later" never comes...LOL

Because of the lumpiness of my embellishments, I did have to remove one of the 8 chipboard pages that come with the album...so I have a total of 14 pages.  I won't clutter up the photos with descriptions of all the supplies used, so if you have a question or two about anything in particular, please leave me a comment or drop me an email and I'll fill you in on the details!

Page 1...

 Pages 2-3...

Pages 4-5...

 Pages 6-7...

Pages 8-9...

Pages 10-11...

Pages 12-13...

And the last page, 14...

Thanks so much for stopping by for a visit today...I hope you're having a great week so far!