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

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