Spring Configurations Book!

Hey! Okay, whew, I finally sat down and photographed my project from last Saturday's class! You might remember that I took a super amazing 'Spring Configurations Book' class from my friend Richele. That was quite the fun day and resulted in a really cool finished product! We stamped for TEN HOURS straight! I ain't foolin' either. No breaks, no chit chattin' or anything. My dear friend Caroline joined me and lots of my other stamping friends were there too. Just the perfect day of fellowship and creativity. I was totally creatively rejuvenated by it!  Richele is talented in a way that I would never dream to be talented and it was big fun to learn from her and make something so wonderful. CLICK HERE to see Richele's blog!  

This is a very loooooooong post! I took tons of pictures to share with you from class, and of my finished book. BUT, I also made something to bring with me to class and want to share those too! I wanted to make something special for Richele and Caroline so I made us all name tags and treat bags for class. I went with the same theme of class and created some Tim Holtz Spring goodies with my Blueprint Stamps. I made each one a different color to jazz it up a bit.  I'll start by showing you my book!

This was my favorite little box in my configuration…Truly I am blessed! The metal piece in the background was covered in three colors of paint and then sanded. The heart was distressed with brown ink and then smothered in yummy glitter…. 

 

 

 

 

Here is the finished cover of my book! I loooooove all those glittery flowers! The strips running across the front are all different tapes from Tim Holts. The "JOURNEY" and other words are rub-ons.

 

 

 

Here is my book, and also a brand new one, so you can see what we all started with. I bought this other book, and hope to one day make an ocean themed book/box! I need to rest up first though! LOL.

 

 

 

Here is the inside of my Configuration book! Each little square has a different item in it. It's so whimsical and different. This is definitely "out of my box" – pun intended. Don't you love it!?

 

 

 

Here is a close up of my cover. The bunny was stamped on watercolor paper and then we used water brushes and distress ink pads to color him in. Clever??? That grass is too fun!

 

 

 

Here is the lovely Richele holding her creation and passing it around to show everyone. We all copied her template, and yet, everyone's box came out a little differently, especially the covers. I wish I had taken photos of others' boxes!

 

 

 

It took the entire morning just to get our boxes ready for the fun stuff! Here you can see that we covered the inside of each small box with patterned papers first…

 

 

 

Next, we adhered washi tape around every edge, to hold the paper down and to finish the tops of the boxes. Oy, that seemed like it took forever!

 

 

 

OOOOOOOH…sparkly! Next, we COVERED the inside of every box with this fabulous glitter!!! Then, we let this all sit and dry and had a lunch break!

 

 

 

Here are some of my flowers, die cut and sanded, and inked….

 

 

 

Here is my panel for the front…. That ribbon started off stark white! We dyed it using water and ink pads. I am SOOOO going to do this technique! I already bought a pack of the white crinkle ribbon to have on hand. So fab.

 

 

 

Okay, let's take a little break from my book, and I'll show you the tags and bags I made for my gal pals. Here are the finished tags. I put them on the bags with twine and then we took them off and wore them as our name tags in class!

 

 

 

 

Here I am just starting out and planning our tags…. I'm glad my name is short! LOl.

 

 

 

I wet the tags first and then just put the ink pads directly onto the wet tags to make the background color…

 

 

 

I made some grass with a TE die and inked around the edges. The letters are a Memory Box alphabet die and I did them in black paper. I stamped one of the mini blueprints (From Tim Holtz) on each tag.

 

 

 

Here's a close up of the tags. I layered a second image on foam tape and also added some flowers and butterflies…it was a Spring class after all!

 

 

 

Another close up!

 

 

 

I frayed this pretty ribbon from Stampin' Up to make it look more vintage…

 

 

 

Here are the treat bags I made to match. Inside I put water, gum, candy and snacks for our all day stamp marathon! It was nice to bring a little treat for my friends.

 

 

 

Okay, now for the close ups! Here is the butterfly on the cover of my book…again with that wonderful glitter. It makes everything better!!

 

 

 

I learned so much in this class. Most of all, I learned that I like getting my hands all messy and doing stuff like this! I need to relax and loosen up a little… The layers and layers of things makes this type of crafting so beautiful. I never would have thought of this!!

 

 

 

Here are a couple of the boxes. That blue ribbon was dyed with ink and water because I felt that would look good in this box. The key was covered in blue paint and then rubbed off. Yes, that is a tiny bottle filled with glitter down there!!

 

 

 

Now when I dyed the ribbon I used pink and orange…and then Richele said to add some brown??? Well, of course that was the perfect thing to do! Gave it a real antique feeling.

 

 

 

I love that blue flower! Each layer is glitter coated, then the center is metal and secured with a brad. And, yes, that angel is wearing a teeny tiny pink crown!

 

 

 

This birdhouse is marvelous! It was built out of paper, and the roof is silver! Then I added some moss and some branches. And a happy blue birdie!

 

 

 

I have this chocolate bunny die and I adore it! Here I made her bow pink and glittery (are you sensing a theme with the glitter!?) and put her in some moss. Gotta love that hot glue gun too…made everything easier!

 

 

 

 

 

Whew, that was such a long post! I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed sharing it with you. I hope you find some inspiration and imagination from this project. Have an amazing week everyone. It's Easter week! XOXO