Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now.

Super Awesome Contest Thing

My hubby is having this amazing giveaway in August,

and I'm excited to share it with you as well!

Here are the goodies being raffled:

A handmade canvas frame (courtesy of yours truly).

Here's an example of what it will look like with a 5x7 photo.

I have also made five greeting cards. 

Each of them highlight fun, typewriter-themed ephemera.

Why stop at paper? 

Here is a one-of-a-kind embroidery piece that I made using various fabrics and buttons.

This hoop adorned the wall of my office before Mike saw it and asked me to donate it to his cause.

He is also giving away a copy of his short-story anthology, although you don't have to wait for the contest to have a copy for yourself.  You can check it out here, too.

Go visit Mike's blog here to learn more and enter to win.  Good luck, friends!!!

xoxo

Genevieve

An Appointment With Crafting

I needed a date book for work, and couldn't find anything that really grabbed me.

So - I altered one!

I started with one I found at Barnes & Noble.

Then, I used these adorable Thrift Shop rub-ons from October Afternoon. 

For this book, I started with the yellow doily rub-on and layered the ladies on top.

Easy as pie!  Hope this inspires you to use those fun scrapbooking embellishments in new ways!!

xoxo

Genevieve

Sales Material

One of my favorite things about being a sales manager at Red Lion is that I can stretch my creativity when it comes to client gifts.

I am in the process of signing a contract with a quilting convention and am giving them a site tour Monday morning.

Now, I don't quilt myself, but I do love fabric!  I decided to make this embroidery hoop fiber art for my client.  I'm putting it in the room, along with cookies and a welcome card for check-in tomorrow.

I used some fun fabric that I found at JoAnn.  I attached some Steam-A-Seam to the red fabric and then hand-cut the pattern from the Red Lion logo that I printed on to paper. 

I taped the paper to the back of my red fabric, put it against the window and traced it with a black marker. Then, I cut it by hand.

After that, I ironed the pieces to the white fabric. The Steam-A-Seam bonded them together so I didn't have to stitch it at all. Super easy!

I can't WAIT to hear about how it goes over tomorrow - wish me luck!!

xoxo

Genevieve

Bella Stitchery

A Birthday Cocktail For You!

Happy hour cocktails for a happy birthday!

My work buddy loves the retro and Vintage style cards I make,

so I wanted to do something extra special for her this week.

I started with this fabulous balloon/music note sheet from Glitz Design

(I've been waiting to use it for over a year!)

I found some of these chipboard frames a little while back and painted this one a yellow gold to match the tones in this Vintage image.  The frame was a perfect fit!

Clusters of embellishments really make a card (or layout) stand out. 

Here I used several crocheted flowers, a fabric brad, hand-tied button and two pins.

Inside the card, I used a journal frame from Cosmo Cricket and stamped "Happy Birthday" on it, along with some flowers (there are tiny rhinestones in the center of each one, too).

Thanks for stopping in!  Happy Crafting!

xoxo

Genevieve

Give 'em the Old Razzle-Dazzle

Here is another pin-up card that I made for a friend's promotion. 

I'm going to drop it off, along with some flowers, for her first day on the job this afternoon.

I love the circus illustration and inside I'm going to write,

"Give 'em the old razzle-dazzle; razzle-dazzle 'em"

from the Chicago musical.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you have a crafty week!

xoxo

Genevieve

Pin-Up Promotion

My friend Callie and I share a passion for pin-ups!  When she was recently promoted to Catering Manager in my sales office, I wanted to make her an extra-special card to welcome her.

This image was perfect, since it mixed a lovely retro pin-up girl with office supplies!  lol

I love embellishing inside the cards, too.  I think it adds 87 points to the fun factor (this card, for example, has a fun factor of 132, of course).  :)

Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

Genevieve

Get Your Retro On

I recently finished this darling retro coffee ad for my kitchen,

but I was sorry that I used such a bright white fabric. 

It just didn't seem to match the 1950's tone of the pattern.

Here is the finished piece with the white fabric:

Well?  I thought I would try dying the fabric in coffee to see how it would turn out. 

Having never done it before, I was a little nervous,

 seeing how I already had stitched the entire thing (I'll never get those four months back...)

I started with really diluted coffee, since I wasn't sure what the result would be and then slowly added more of the coffee into the bowl to darken it.

I checked the fabric every 10 minutes or so. 

When I was happy with it, I rinsed it out with fresh water and let it hang dry. 

 Then, I ironed it out and framed it with a walnut frame I found at a flea market (perfect size!)

I probably could have gone a bit darker, too, but I didn't want to alter the color of thread too much.  Hope this inspires you to play with dying your own fabric - it's really quite easy and lots of fun!

Happy crafting!

xoxo

Genevieve

FREE Easter Joy Cross-Stitch Pattern

Easter is all about joy, so I thought I would spread a little of my own with this free, one-of-a-kind cross-stitch pattern:

Click here to download the pattern from Scribd.

This darling project will be about 14x21.5 inches when complete (based on a standard 14 ct. aida cloth, although you can use any size you like).  Chart comes complete with the list of DMC floss needed.

Please send me photos when you're done with this piece - I would love to see this adorable chickie finished!

xoxo
Genevieve
Bella Stitchery

Springtime

A breath of fresh air throughout the city and children coming outside to play after school each day - must be Spring!

I wanted to celebrate the season with some fun, happy cards.  Springtime means color, new life and joy.  I made this cute ducky card for my sister using some adorable paper from October Afternoon.

I love this paper!  The houndstooth pattern is the backside of the duck print.  I used some Thickers to spell out "Spring"and then topped it off with some Vintage ribbon and flowers.

Then I thought, why stop there?  Any cheerful pattern will make a fun Spring greeting!

I used the same card layout design to make this polka dot piece.  I really enjoy working with monotones, so I used the teal blue for the top of the card, along with the lettering.

This one is available at my Bella Stitchery ArtFire shop and is fully embellished inside as well.

Hope you enjoy the season and take time to enjoy the delights of handmade!

xoxo

Genevieve

Home is where the ART is.

I love finding new ways to use paper!

I made these fun wooden plaques using the $1 wood ovals from Michaels.

I painted the sides with dark brown and then used hot glue on the front to paste down my favorite Cosmo Cricket Gretel paper.  I sanded the paper to give it a good edge, flush with the wood and to antique it a bit.

The letters were cut from my Cricut and then decorated with lots of little flowers, ribbon and buttons.

I stapled some gingham ribbon on the back of each piece of wood when I was finished.

It's a fun, easy project, and a great way to display your favorite paper patterns.

Sweet Audrey

I stitched this one-of-a-kind Audrey Hepburn piece because I thought it would be fun to work with a gray scale pattern.  She is created using over two dozen shades of gray, black and white.

Breakfast at Tiffany's was such an iconic movie and Hepburn is still the person by which we measure elegance and grace.

I have this finished cross-stitch available on eBay until Sunday here:

Bella Stitchery Audrey Hepburn Cross-Stitch

I have started the bid at $.99 so that she will be available to anyone who wants it. 

I'm also including FREE shipping world-wide.

Don't miss out on this one. 

Only ONE available!

Thanks so much!

xoxo

Genevieve

Bella Stitchery Audrey Hepburn Cross-Stitch

Meat Tornado

"The less I know about other people’s affairs, the happier I am. I’m not interested in caring about people. I once worked with a guy for three years and never learned his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes."

-Ron Swanson

Mike and I love our Thursday night line-up, not the least of which is Parks & Recreation.  My hubby's favorite character is Ron Swanson and I wanted to do something a little...different...with this year's Valentine for him.

I made this unique greeting using one of Ron Swanson's famous lines from the show, "You had me at meat tornado." and then embellished the card with lots of shiny German glass glitter.

I cut out a heart, popped it with some foam underneath and embellished it with more glitter. 

Love it.

Mike said it's probably the best card I have ever made him.  Boom.  Done.