Organize with Style: Tips Day 2 with Angi & Valerie

Hi it's Angi here sharing with you a great tip on how to organize your small embellishment leftover pieces :)

When I craft I often have loose embellishments all over the place.
Instead of placing them in my stash pile, I put them in mini 3 ring albums. The 3 x 3 albums are the perfect size for me.I use the Instagram albums from We R Memory Keepers. You can use any size or brand for this type of organizing.

You can find the 4x4 Insta Albums at The Little Blue House
or on our LBH Online Shop

The photo sleeves are just the right size to hold fabric letters, flair, buttons, bows, and any small sized embellishment. When working on a project I just flip through the pages and find the perfect little embellishment to finish off a project. You can even take this a step further and organized by color, size, or type. 

I hope you all like my fun little way to organize my embellies. 

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Hi it's Valerie here to share my favorite organizing tool from my craft space! One of my favorite storage solutions (I actually have 2 of them!) is a revolving storage bin that I purchased at Harbor Freight Tools. (Melissa Frances also have a similar product)
 Here's the before photo of what it looks like after it's put together from the store

And here's mine after it's been painted, washi-ed and filled.
They are only 12" tall but I can get lots on each of them!

I spray painted them both and then I decorated around each bin with washi tape. On the yellow bin, I actually attached magnets to hold my flair buttons around the bin.
Here are a few close ups of some of my stored goodies

 I filled a couple of small vintage bowls with roving wool and stuck all of my stickpins in them and keep them on the top of the bin

This is a small amount of my sprays...  

this is a bin of paper flowers and you can see the twine in the bin above it!

I have each stored with my most used goodies and I keep them at either end of my work table so that I can see and grab whatever I might need from them! If I can see it I will use it!

Thanks Angi and Valerie for showing these great organizing tips!  

Add these ideas to your Pinterest page and see more great tips on our  Pinterest Board "Organizing with Style"

Be Inspired : Dear Lizzy's Serendipity- Die-Cut Tutorial

Hi---Valerie here!!  

I was thrilled to receive the die-cut set from the
Dear Lizzy Serendipity Collection to try out!

Using die-cuts are one of my favorite ways to make my embellishments customized to whatever project I am working on. And I love when I can use parts of the die-cut pieces in different way like I did with my favorite piece in the Dear Lizzy Set - the fringe piece (It looks like a comb!)!!
I first used it the way it is intended to be used - as the center of the flowers that are part of the set. You simply roll the fringe up and then spread the ends out to look like the stamens of a flower. For this run roll up flower, I first die-cut the pieces and then edged all the pieces with a pink Wink of Stella glitter brush before rolling them into the flower. I haven't decided yet where I'll use it, but it will be a gorgeous embellishment edition to whatever I use it on!

I used it next as the actual fringe at the bottom of my tag

I just cut two pieces and then layered them one on top of each other to create the fringe.

I also used the layered flower and leaves from the set on my tag. I used the Wink of Stella pink glitter brush on this flower too - I love the subtle glimmer it gives the flower!

Here is a list of the supplies I used that you can find on The Little Blue House online store where you can order them:

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Serendipity Die Cut Set

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Serendipity Enamel Dots

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Serendipity Puffy Stickers

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Serendipity Lucky Love Paper

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Serendipity Love Letters Paper

Wink of Stella Pink Glitter Brush

Thanks for stopping by!! Have a great day!! :)
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If you are in the Dallas Fort Worth area...
Come out and see us at Scrapbook Expo this weekend!
It's being held at the Gaylord Texan Hotel in Grapevine! We have a Little Blue Booth at the Show full of great products and LBH Kits to purchase.We also have Free Make & Takes and Demos
going on all through out the day in our booth! :)

If you are visiting for the show, The Little Blue House is also open tomorrow (Sat 2/21) from 10am-5pm
we are located about 20 minutes away from Grapevine!

118 W.Olive Street Keller, TX 76248

 

Love Bug Feature: Using Watercolor on a layout

Valerie here, sharing my layout that I made for the Front Porch Kit Design Team using watercolors to accent the photo and to enhance one of the papers that was in the kit. It was this piece of Crate Paper from the Kiss Kiss Collection

I loved the "B" side of this - the watercolor pinks were just gorgeous, but I wanted to be able to use both sides of the paper so I only wanted to use half of it on this layout

The right side of the has the watercolor - you can see it underneath the photo and the title

All you need to do this is some gesso, watercolors, a watercolor brush, and some water.

 First I used a plain piece of white cardstock and painted white gesso all down the right side. I didn't worry about the left side, because I knew it would be covered by the piece of patterned paper. I let it dry naturally - it doesn't take too long, but if you're in a hurry you can use a heat gun to speed the process

I then got my paintbrush very wet and chose the pink color I wanted and got it juicy wet with the paintbrush

I took my brush loaded with the paint and after determining where I wanted the photo to sit, I painted a line across the page.

 

When I had enough paint on my page, I dipped my paintbrush into water and swiped it across the paint on the page and let it drip down by tilting my page up

 To further make the paint move around (and also to help it dry), I used my heat gun to push the paint around and down to the bottom of my cardstock

This was the finished look

I then attached the patterned paper to the left side of my page, used some heart stickers right down the middle, did a little sewing, attached my matted photos to the correct spot and started layering the embellishments and added the title. Here's the completed project again

This Front Porch Kit is still available at the Little Blue House! You can purchase at the LBH or online at www.thelittlebluehouseonline.com. 

Leave a comment here today and you will be entered into a drawing for a LOVE BUG Prize Bag filled with lovely goodies! Winner to be announced TONIGHT!!!

Thanks for stopping by and have an awesome time creating!!

Valerie

The Little Blue House 12 Days of Christmas Ornaments: Day #6

Hi there! Valerie Bishop here with ornament #6 of the LBH 12 Days of Ornaments! I am one of the Front Porch Kit Designers and I'm excited to be joining in on this feature! For me, this year is all about clean and simple and my ornament reflects that! We got rid of our huge tree that we've had for several years and we decided to go with a small (white!) tree this year and I can't wait to hang my new ornaments on it - they will look awesome!! I collect and display bottlebrush Christmas trees so I wanted to make an ornament that has a tiny bottlebrush tree inside of it. I got my inspiration from Pinterest and love the way these came together!!

Here is a list of products and tools you will need

Small bottlebrush trees (I used Fancy Pants brand - just make sure the base will fit into the ornament)
Old Fashioned Lightbulb fillable Ornament
Chunky Glass Glitter
Tinsel Twine (I used Tim Holtz)
Silver Tinsel
Red and White Twine
Hot Glue Gun
Long Tweezers

Take the top off the ornament and test to make sure the base will fit inside of it - don't worry if the tree is larger - the brush will bend up easily.

Get your tree ready on your tweezers (It stays on the tweezers easily)

Then add just a little dab of hot glue to the bottom of the base of the tree - make sure to get it right on the bottom so it's not oozing over as it will scrape against the inside of the ornament and you will get the glue all over the inside (I know this from experience! But it's easy to pull off with the tweezers if you do get some on the sides!).

Slowly put your tree inside your ornament using your tweezers until it sits on the bottom. Wait until the glue dries then you can arrange your tree if it's a bit crooked using your tweezers. If you can see in the bottom photo I did get a glob of glue on the side (this was the first ornament I made so I didn't go slow enough!!). I was able to pull it off the side easily with my tweezers once the glue had dried!

After the glue has dried (it just takes a few minutes) add about a teaspoon or two of the glitter glass into the ornament. I don't have a small funnel, so I made my own by just rolling up a piece of scrap paper

I added just a about 4 pieces of tinsel inside the ornament (if you add too many you can't see the tree!). I wound into a small ball, then pushed it inside the ornament. It expands beautifully inside and gives just a little bit more texture and glam!!

 I then put the top back onto the ornament and I hot glued a piece of the Tim Holtz Tinsel twine around the top to ensure that the top will not pop off

Tie a bow with the bakers twine to the top of the ornament and your done!! For my white trees, I used a different color of twine and in one of them I added tiny blue micro beads.

Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you've enjoyed my tutorial!

You will also have a chance to WIN an ornament each day! Simply leave a comment on each daily post and one lucky commenter will be chosen each day to take home that specific ornament! Share with me today one of your favorite holiday traditions.

Join us and let's make it the best Hand-made Holiday ever! All the featured ornaments will be on display on our Christmas Tree at the Little Blue House!

Be sure to become a follower TODAY on the LBH Blog to ensure you don't miss out on this Holly Jolly free tutorials!!!
I hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

Valerie

CONGRATULATIONS to the DAY #5 WINNER:
SCRAPAHOLIC KK

Please contact the LBH to claim your ornament