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.

You ROCK!

Everyone I work with at Red Lion ROCKS, so I wanted to make the sales & catering team special Valentine cards this year.

I found this cute idea in a magazine, and started working on these bad-boys assembly line style.

It was nice to put my Cricut to good use, too!

I made this simple pocket by hot-gluing three sides of the polka dot paper.

The most difficult part of my venture was the city-wide search for Pop Rocks. I had no idea how difficult they would be to find. I hit up almost every Sun Mart, Wal-Mart, Walgreens, 7-11 and Conoco in Tri-Cities, Washington!

Thanks for stopping by!  You ROCK, too!  :)

xoxo

Genevieve

Digital Age

Ahhh, Christmas morning. 

Two little people enjoying the magic of the holiday and having fun....playing with digital devices??? 

Wow.  When did this happen?

Cousins sitting side-by-side with their iPads and iPods -too cute to pass up this photo opportunity!

I thought I would make an ironic scrapbook layout to showcase their modern toys by making the page in a Vintage style. 

I used www.picnik.com to make the picture look like a Polaroid. 

The paper I used is from Sassafras Lass.  I embellished the page with a paper doily and some handmade crocheted flowers. 

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

Genevieve

Soup for the (Crafting) Soul

I saw the Homemade 6 Bean Soup line from Jillibean Soup this week and just had to have it!

I dug up some pictures I had of me crafting away from a few years ago.  Scrapbooking is such a huge part of my life and I wanted to have fun with the handmade, crafty feel of this paper line.

I had lots of fun with this one and was able to layer tons of embellishments

(which always makes me feel justified in my scrapbook spending. 

See honey, I do need all of these things!)

I used some great K and Co die-cuts that have been in my 'random stuff' drawer for years,

 along with LOTS of glittery cardstock flowers.

Here's a quick look at the Jillian Bean Soup collection, too.  It's super cute!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy crafting!

xoxo

Genevieve

Warm Christmas Memories

One of the wonderful things about scrapbooking is that the holidays are never really over.  You get a chance to play with the pictures and fun holiday-themed paper and embellishments long after the last Christmas gift is opened.

We had such a great time seeing the family back in Las Vegas this year.  The weather was beautiful and the time spent together was magical.

This layout was done using the new Bo Bunny Father Christmas line as well as lots of fabulous Prima flowers. 

This page was all about layers for me.  I used several layers just in the background cardstock alone and then added here and there until I found a collage that I liked (the page weighs like 5 pounds! lol).

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas season!  Have lots of fun scrappin' those memories!

xoxo

Genevieve

Wine and Dine

Nothing beats time with family.  My fabulous in-laws came to visit me here in Tri-Cities, Washington, and we gave them the grand tour of the wineries in our area.  Here is a picture of them on the balcony at Kiona winery.  It was my first wine tasting ~ whoo!

The weather was perfect and the cheese and wine was amazing!