Birds Beads and Butterflies

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to take a class from my dear friend and PWA designer (formerly our office manager), Yvonne Grimes and oh what a wonderful class it was!  Yvonne went wild with Memory Box papers and Outlines rubber stamps to create this gorgeous mirror (from Ikea):

Each package of 6” by 6” Memory Box paper came with 30 sheets of paper in ten different coordinating patterns.   Yvonne embossed NINE different sheets of paper for every student so that all we had to do was cut and color.  Sweet!  Layers and layers and more layers are her secret to creating these fun mosaic blocks.  Here is my bee:

Can you see the micro bead layer?  It’s the outermost square in white and blue.  I love how just putting the clear beads over the paper distorts the image and reflects the colors from underneath!

I’ve always teased Yvonne for being a “fussy cutter” because she’ll cut out the tiniest details for her artwork.  (And she teases me for liking to color things so it’s all fair!)   In class it was neat to experience her world of  “fussy cutting”!  With these amazing results, it really made me reconsider my previous aversion to it!

Here is my birdhouse and butterfly together:

It’s hard to see the dimension in the photos but several pieces are layered up one, two or even three thicknesses of foam tape.  Our 1/8” foam tape strips really came in handy here!  All of the blocks are colored with shimmery watercolor paints (any brand will do!) and finished off with lots of gems and jewels.

Yvonne even sent every student home with all the extra papers from the kits and we got to keep all of our leftover embossed pieces!

Using her technique and my leftover pieces I was able to make 20 ATCs and still have enough papers to keep on going!  WOW!!!

If you’re on the PWA ATC 1-4-1 swap list, you’ll be seeing one of these ATCs  in your mailbox before the end of the month!  Ü

Yvonne is currently employed at Friends and Company in Issaquah, WA.  Be sure to look for her on the class schedule!  Yvonne is an awesome teacher and I have no doubt that you’ll have an excellent experience!

P.S.  I’ve seen what she’s been working on for this fall and it’s gonna be FUN!!

Beautiful Girl

Marianne Colschen is a very busy beader!  I have a whole box of fun stuff from her to share with you this month!  Marianne created this layout of her gorgeous granddaughter to show how she uses our micro beads to add texture to her elements and make them sparkle too!

Die cut and micro beaded flowers along with a dragonfly are the perfect accent for a girly design!

Here is a close up of the dragonfly.  The body has been lifted up with pop dots.  I just love the “bling” of the gems!

 

Our O’So Sticky Paperback Tape works great with punches and die cutters.  Sizzix, Cuttlebugs, Cricuts and more – get them out and make something beadiful today!

 

Note:  Please take special care when using O’So Sticky Tape in your hand held punches to insure that your punch is clean before and after use with O’So Sticky.  Some sticky residue can build up and it’s important that you clean it off to keep your punch working smoothly.  Always use O’So Sticky Paperback in hand held punches, NEVER use the regular (red liner) tape.  The red is actually made of rubber and could damage your punch.