A Frame and Flowers

Miss Lisa was recently inspired to play with some of her 'stash' - funny how that inspiration hits when you have just the right photo in hand.

Searching out an old frame she has removed the glass, painted the photo mat border and used some gorgeous flowers she found at one of our local 'cheapie shops' to give that 3-dimensional 'pop'.

Adding in some handmade flowers, some Tim Holtz hardware and yep you guessed it, that gorgeous Tim Holtz birdcage diecut  - it really has turned out beautifully.

I don't know about you, but I would be delighted to get a beautiful gift like this in my 'Santa Sack' - hint, hint!!!

More Workshop Updates - What is Old is New Again!

I have finally found time this week to start to catch up and so wanted to share more updates from our most recent Workshop - 'What is Old is New Again'.  So let's take a look at what our day was like .... so many great moments and so many great 'creations'.....

Workshop Kits

For those that have attended an Embellees Workshop our favourite feedback has been about our Kits and the packaging. 

All our participants get so excited to arrive and see a different package of goodies awaiting them on the registration table. 

For this Workshop we wanted to honour the theme and when we were creating our 'theme'  - Lizzie kept going back to that beautiful lyric 'brown paper packages tied up with string... these are a few of my favourite things'... inspiration hit and this is what we presented... simple but fitted so nicely....

Name Tags

Like our Kit packaging, we also love to try and theme our name tags for each Workshop.  Many of our participants have told us they have used their Workshop name tags at other events because they are always so unusual and beautiful... so thank you ladies for this great feedback.  For this Workshop you will see we have been having a real 'love affair' with the Tim Holtz Birdcage diecut... look at the gorgeous way that Miss Lisa incorporated these into our packaging... they really did look so lovely on everyone!


The Tea Party

 Lizzie had an image that no one could get her to let go of ... (Miss Lisa nearly wanted to wring her neck a couple of times ..hehehehe). She wanted a 'tea party' setup to showcase all the stash for the Workshop Participants to have access to... well it came to fruition and here is what our Participants were presented with on the day... thank you to everyone who commented on how lovely this was and how excited to see the details we had gone to...

Beautiful tea cups filled with goodies to share

You have gotta just luv Miss Lisa's ribbon stash - she has several of these great vases in her studio just filled with all of this gorgeousnessssss!

Denim pockets to share, paint to get messy with, fabric to cut up, gather, diecut ... so many choices!!!

More buttons in little glass jars, a cupcake stand with you guessed it - our trade mark cupcake wrappers ... mmm so many options for these... lots of flowers that got repurposed with embossing, stamping... eyelets and frames (go on admit you still have these in your stash!)... brads made an appearance and lots of metal embellishments... the list goes on!





Some Fun to Share

As part of our Workshop we organised a 'Scavenger Hunt'.  All our participants were sent a list of items to source from their stash... we wanted people to feel good about using stuff they 'already' had and see it finally on a page ... yes we are all guilty of buying that 'special something' and years later ... yes I said years... it is still too precious to use on a layout... they say 'keep it long enough and it will become fashionable again'... so check out the fun we had with some gorgeous prizes we awarded to our participants and their stash...

Our gorgeous Cassie 'the Stampin Up Queen' won the prize for the best Button Stash - you got to give her credit for carrying along her 'gold fish bowl' full of buttons... that was dedication and it sure made us all laugh - thank you Cassie and Congrats again!

The very lovely Annette took out another one of our prizes for the 'brad stash'... a whole bag of these and so many different varieties... 'you can never have tooo many brads or joes, or sams or peters' ... I say!

Some of our other lovely winners on the day were:

• Brenda for her 'doona bag' of ribbons... yep you know one of those big plastic carry bags you get when you buy your winter doona... it was full of reels and ribbon of all sorts... made Miss Lisa's vase collection pale in comparison!
• Kerry S for her win in the category of most coveted piece of patterned paper.  Kerry pulls out the whole collection of a brand of paper she had been keeping for just that special layout... we all shook our heads ... yes we could admit to the same beautiful pieces still languishing in our paper stash... ah, but this is where she pulled out the Ace... she admitted to making her hubby travel to some small country scrapbooking store in the 'downtown' English (yes I did say England) countryside... yep she not only had it in her collection, but we had to give it to her for the 'international' factor... that is dedication - bring it home in a suitcase and through customs... thank you for 'outing your story' Kerry it made us all laugh!

Bonus Layout Kit - Vintage Goodness

Hope this week finds everyone gearing up for the onslaught of Christmas.  I find myself making lists to make sure I haven't forgotten what I need to purchase and what I have already purchased - if you are anything like me I forget and some of the family end up with multiple 'pressies' because I 'forgot I had such & such put away'.  I am finding it a bit harder this year with my 8 year old is wanting more of the 'big girl' stuff - lots more money and not a lot to show for it... the Santa Sack might now have to be a Santa Stocking.  Well enough of my gabbing on... down to business!

At our last Workshop - What is old is new again, Miss Lisa showcased a gorgeous layout.  As an early Christmas treat for all of our lovely Workshop participants they left with a 'Kit in hand'.

We promised we would publish Miss Lisa's layout on the Blog and FB so that everyone had a 'visual' if they wanted to follow Miss Lisa's inspiration using the Kit.

You will see we are still having a 'love affair' with the Tim Holtz birdcage die cut, handmade flowers, fabric and stamping.... considering Miss Lisa has 2 boys - she sure knows how to make her 'girlie' pages 'sing' - we hope you like it.

We have a couple of these Kits left over and are intending to add them to our next lot of Kit releases through A Beautiful Thing (our collaborative Website where we sell our goodies).

Until our next update - Happy Scrapping!

Lizzie

Workshops & Projects Galore!

Are you ready for a mega post.... as you all know the last weeks have been very 'stressful' for the Embellees Team, so it is time to make up for lost time and provide updates on both of our 'Have You Caught the Bug - Cuttlebug' and our 'What Is Old Is New Again' Workshops.  Lots of 'eye candy' to follow with pics of our projects and some of the wonderful things we have been 'playing' with and producing.

So grab a 'cuppa' and we will get started.....

What is old is new again Workshop

Last Sunday (7 November 2010) saw us host the last of our 2010 Workshops and what a great day it was.  Thank you to all the lovely ladies who attended and shared their 'stash' and 'outed' their bad habits and admitted to more than a few episodes of 'buyers remorse'.  It was such a great laugh seeing some of those early pages, the very dated papers (yeh to Kerry S who even admitted to searching her papers down while in England... ooohh we love a dedicated scrapper who will travel for the right piece of paper and then keep it in the stash for many a year).

Check out our Workshop Photos tab above for all the great pics of the gorgeous mini-books we made by re purposing the 'oldest' Golden Books we could find.  It was so much fun getting participants to 'just go with the flow' and embrace the meaning of an 'ecclectic' album... thank you ladies your books looked great and we hope all your friends and family will love them to bits!

Cuttlebug Workshop

It was full house on 17 October with 25 ladies all embossing, die cutting, inking, painting and spending up big on extras now they had 'Caught the Bug'.  Yes, no one was leaving without a new found love of their 'Bug' or 'BigShot'.  We finished up a lovely canvas and a techniques album that had us cutting and embossing materials that were never thought of.  We have received so many emails in the last month from participants 'raving' about the things they are doing and how much they are enjoying all the extras they learnt how to do.

Check out the Workshop Photos Tab above to see all the great photos from our day. 

Here is the additional layout that Miss Lisa did using our 'kit packaging' - yes for those that come along to one of our Workshop it has become a 'staple' that we try where possible to use our kit packaging 'repurposed' to produce a layout after the event.... it really tests the Embellees Team once they start conceptualising what the Workshop Kits will be like and then how to make the packaging different each time so that a layout becomes the end result.

Just love the use of what was our name tags on the day - the gorgeous Stampin Up 'Top Note' die that Miss Lisa made using strips of 'scraps'. 

This is pic of the canvas that our participants completed (after their techniques album) - this helped bring a lot of the different techniques learnt on the day together in one beautiful project.

In Memory of Pat - Thank You

Thank you to all our Blog followers who have expressed their sympathy regarding the recent death of my beautiful Mum, Pat.  Like all Mums she was my best friend, my confidant.  My love of all things 'craft' and my bad habits of shopping for yet another piece of fabric or scrapbooking paper was all inherited from her. 

Mum became a seamstress at age 15 and her skills with a sewing machine were renowned.  My brothers have asked me what I am going to do with the Bernina Industrial sewing machine(or the boat anchor as they call it behind my back - yes boys I have heard that!).  I still love sewing on the 'Bernina' and the sound of that 4hp motor when I put my foot down.  It reminds me of all those years when Mum worked until the 'wee' small hours to finish a sewing job just to make sure we had food on the table. 

Mum was 83 years when she passed away on the 11 October 2010 and, even in those last weeks she had busily finished up gorgeous crochet blankets and knitted jumpers for her 6th great grand-child (Brendan John Hooper-Smith) born just 2 weeks before she passed away.  In the last days of her life, she reminded me that I must sew-up a cardigan she had finished for Reshani (great grand-daughter #5) for next winter.  As Mums eyes aged, her love of cross-stitch and sewing gave way to her crocheting.  She was so proud to still be able to pick up a pattern and make something 'fashionable - none of this old fashioned stuff ' she would say. 

Mum's beautiful crochet rugs were made for not only family, but many friends and even those she never met will be warmed by her creations. She would hear of someone unwell or just doing it tough and, she would immediately be crocheting a rug to bring a smile to their face. 

At Mum's Service, my brothers spoke but, sadly I could not bring myself to speak publicly of my love and pride in this fantastic and talented woman, it was just too painful.  It is now a month today since I last told her I loved her and would see her the next day and, too not do anything silly that night (she was not well) as 'I didn't have time in my busy week for such things' (always was our humour that got us through when it was tough).  I rest knowing that my last words to her were that 'I love you very much' and her response was 'I love you too my darling girl'.  I hate that I will never hear her call me that again and, that she is not in the house every afternoon when I walk in to ask, 'how her day has been'. 

She loved that my scrapbooking and craft not only brought me joy, but surrounded me with many new and true friends, she herself had made life-long friends through her TAFE courses and the Embroiders Guild.  She always told me, that the 'life stories' you share around a craft table (no matter what that craft is) will be the best therapy you can have in life.

Rest in peace my beautiful Patricia Mary Margaret xxxx

Thank you ....
Lizzie