Viola Mahr

In Tandem ~

Ever ridden a tandem bike? I loved it so much when I was a little bit smaller. Being the two youngest of 10 children always meant me and my little brother were the tiniest (for many years at least; he's now the tallest of the guys and I'm the tallest of the girls) ........ and we'd trail in the back with Mom when the family went cycling. Riding tandem with the older ones was the only sure way to keep up! :) Eventually though, everyone got tall enough that tandem bikes usually meant wrecks and crashes all along the way. HA!

Anyway, back to the subject....... today is the final sneak peek day for The Craft's Meow. Didn't the last few days projects from the TCM team make you drool? You'll love the sets when they're revealed in full tomorrow. Today's stamp set is called In Tandem and it has that sweet ole tandem bicycle which I overloaded with flowers and trim.

At the bottom of the card you can see more of the Telegram set which was previewed in my last post. 

Would you like to WIN this new set, before everyone else has a chance to purchase one? :) If you hop on over to the TCM blog and leave a comment there, you might be the winner picked today and announced tomorrow. The TCM blog has a complete list of all the ladies going to be sharing projects today so make sure you take a moment to check out the blogs linked here.

have a super, wonderful, best day ever.

~vio

Telegram Day ~

..... It's day 3 for The Craft's Meow sneek peaks leading up to the August 1st release. This set is so special I've used it on almost every card I've made since I received it in the mail! :) You might have seen snippets of it on the cards posted the last two days of sneek peaks. It's called Telegram and is ever so sweet.

My favorite part of this stamp set has got to be the running dashed line you see right on the bottom of this card...... it looks so official and such :) There are so many options with this lovely set..... make it simple and sweet, or shabby and sugary. However you please.

Would you like to WIN this new set, before everyone else has a chance to purchase one? :) If you hop on over to the TCM blog and leave a comment there, you might be the winner picked today and announced tomorrow. The TCM blog has a complete list of all the ladies going to be sharing projects today so make sure you take a moment to check out the blogs linked here.

I will be sure to be showcasing this set MANY more times in the near future :)

happy day!
~vio 

You're an A+ Friend ~

YAY! day 2 of sneak peeks for The Craft's Meow........... our stamp set for today is another cute one called Owl See You in Class ....... how fun does that sound!!! :)

It includes that teensy chalkboard, pencil, and even the little sum. Below you can see the cursive lines also in the set.

The "sent to you with love" circle stamp image is from another set due to be revealed on August 1 as well. no clues about it yet though :) .... sneak peek for that one will be two days from now.

Would you like to WIN this new set, before everyone else has a chance to purchase one? :) If you hop on over to the TCM blog and leave a comment there, you might be the winner picked today and announced tomorrow. The TCM blog has a complete list of all the ladies going to be sharing projects today so make sure you take a moment to check out the blogs linked here.

thanks for visiting.......... enjoy this super day!
~vio 

a little picket fence ~

First day preview for The Craft's Meow August release... I am SUPER excited!!!

Today's stamp set is a cute little one called Owl Be Thinking of You and it's filled to the brim with the funniest owls and images...... lots of goodies.

I know my cutesy cards always somehow come out a little bit too lame....... LOL.... so I went with what my head was trying to tell me, and got a bit more innovative. From a little hanging sign included in the set (you'll have to wait till August 1 to see the full image) I created a little picket fence.

The little heart print and sentiment both also come from this set. Even if you aren't the cutesy type, give this set a try...... lots of things can be imagined and created from the stamps provided.

CLOUDS!!! can you see the faint outline trimming the top of the card? those are totally cute clouds included in this set. Wait till you see the rest of the stamps!

Would you like to WIN this new set, before everyone else has a chance to purchase one? :) If you hop on over to the TCM blog (link edited... thank you for letting me know!) and leave a comment there, you might be the winner picked today and announced tomorrow. The TCM blog has a complete list of all the ladies going to be sharing projects today (I'm not linking here cos I'm not sure which of the DT members will be posting today), so make sure you take a moment to check out the blogs linked here.

Happy hopping!
~vio 

 

frames and scraps ~

Hello weekend! It's totally AMAZING how fast the days pass....... and how old I grow. Can you hear my knees creaking? 

------- change the subject -------

This first card uses goodies from Crafty Secrets: gold rose vine trim ...........

........... and mini vintage creative scraps ............. along with a few other trims and bits.

this other card uses fancy gold lace trim ............

 fancy corners and trims ............

and embossed frames, which I stamped with some leaf vines. The vine stamp set will be released soon! :)

all other goodies from Melissa Frances (resin and crystal chandelier drops), Prima (flowers), Pink Paislee (patterned paper), and MemrieMare (ribbon).

hope you're having a wonderful weekend. I'm off to spend the day with my sisters and our friends....

hugs,
~ vio

Biddy Birds ~

Another post today for Want2Scrap! Some delicious chipboard flourishes.........

I slopped on the white acrylic paint and sanded a little...

A few pearls, which are my favorite things ever, to splendify it. 
(there is no such word as "splendify")

The cute row of little biddy birds come from Crafty Secrets' Birds and Blossoms creative scraps. They're so fat and funny and gossipy-looking. They just make me LOL! ;)

For the top trimmings, some soft tea lace, a paper doily, twine, trinket pin, and a rosebud.

Skipped the sentiment, because I felt those gossipy biddies shouldn't have any words put in their mouths. teehee!!

I tried "clean and simple" for this card. epic fail.
So I give up, and will go back to the cluttered look.

Well, for the past two weeks maybe, my creative-brain-juice (some people like to call it mojo) ran away... and I discovered, when something really wants to run away from you, you can't force it to come back.

So I laid back, took it easy on the crafting time, studied hard, practiced tons, did lots of graphic design work (check out Laurie's, Tammy's, and Pattie's blogs), cooked some nice food for my family, ate ice cream {MY FAVORITE} and accomplished lots of other things. 

Then today all of a sudden it came back. IT = creative-brain-juice. YAY-HOO-WOO! So I hope I will have more to share in the coming days.

thanks for putting up with me and my chatter-box today.

~ vio

 

 

Crafty Secrets Creative Mini-Scraps *WINNERS*

Just popping back in quickly to share the two winners of the little share-away here.
Random.org picked #25..........
i would love to have one of these collections. i admire the card that you made with them.
Posted by: f lynn rush | Thursday, 14 July 2011 at 12:44 AM

and #44.............
What a fun giveaway! Love anything from Crafty Secrets, and it's no wonder she asked you to help after looking at your amazing blog designs you do! Very talented lady I must say. Would love to win, keeping my fingers crosssed.
Posted by: Lea Sorley | Friday, 15 July 2011 at 04:38 AM

I would like to thank Miss Lea Sorley for the wonderful designation of "lady"...... it makes me feel nice and grand. :) Seriously, thank you all for your nice comments that day. It really was just one little card.. I'm so glad you all liked it (if you were speaking truthfully) ;)

thank you again..... this was super fun and we'll do it again for sure.
~ vio

Crafty Secret's ~NEW~ Product Show Offs!

 
Howdy Monday! It's DT-challenge day for Crafty Secrets and we're going to show the new goodies that have recently been released: lots of stamp sets, mini creative scraps and other stuff.

My project used the new Born to Fly stamp set ....... looky at it in all its cute glory!

I paper pieced one of the little girls. It was dreadfully fun, and I'm going to show you how...... 

*TUTORIAL DISCLAIMER* I know I did a not-so-great job on this. It was so befuddling to have to stop at every step and take a photo, so inevitably, I missed out on a few things. Hope you won't notice though :) 

First, let's make the fairy.

 
Now, we assemble the card.
 Next, we dress up the card with a few fun things..........
There it is..... a silly little tutorial I hope you had the patience to run through. I'm not quite sure if it was helpful to you, but if anything, you probably learned something of my creative process. It's called Disorganized Chaos. (truthfully, I rarely plan the whole card out or use sketches. I use whatever comes to my whim and fancy at the moment in time).

Just a few more photos and I'll be done.
  

SUPPLIES:
patterned paper and resin embellishment - Melissa Frances
scrunchy ribbon - PLG shop
rhinestones and pearls - Kaisercraft
other - doily, button, twine, lace trim snips, and Crafty Secrets stamp set


Thank you for visiting! now you want to hop on to the rest of the DT ladies' blogs and see what's up their crafty sleeves.

• Crafty Secrets website
• Heartwarming Vintage blog
• Vicki Chrisman Team Leader
• Pam Hooten
• Heidi Blankenship
• Linda Duke
• Michele Kovack
• Julie Campbell
• Amy Teets
• Debbie Marcinkiewicz
• Fauve van Maanen
• Gini Cagle
• Jan Hennings
• Tammy Roberts
• Victoria Warren Mears

happy hugs,

~ vio

 

 

 

Blue Wednesday ~ mid-week mini-scraps

ETA: Quick! the Crafty Secrets' blog is having giveaways of the new stamp sets the whole week long. Click HERE to participate! And scroll down to read more about my own giveaway :)

Hello! I am sorry for my absence the last few days. There's really no reason except that I felt lazy and didn't want to create much, and even when I did, I didn't want to post... :)

Anyway, I mentioned a while back about the Mini Creative Scraps I helped to design for Crafty Secrets:

Well, I didn't do everything, all and all myself.. it would have been impossible without the hard work of Sandy, the owner of Crafty Secrets, and Cindy, her amazing graphic designer. I just pitched in and did my little bit to help them out.

Here is my first project using the awesome little scraps. The 1" squares are SO fun to piece together!!! I also used some patterns from the Vintage Patterns CD and a cute little sentiment from the all new Born to Fly stamp set!

Isn't that cute? I love all the different "fairy-options" and the special sentiments. I've already made another project that I will share on Monday next week with a step-by-step tutorial. (OOPS! I spilled the beans!)

 
Can you see the gentle shine over some of the mini-scrap squares? Those are epoxies that fit perfectly over the mini scraps. Fun!!!

I guess you should get some Mini Creative scraps and have some fun yourself too........ I'm just so excited about them them, and I have two extra sets that I would love to share. If you care to try them out, please let me know. I will draw two comments from this post on Sunday, and let you know who they are on Monday. (I already wish that I had enough to send to everyone who leaves a comment!!!)

Thank you for stopping by!

~vio

 

Recycle and Refresh ~ something fun

weeeellllll.... for having used the word "recycle" I really should have the *original* item as proof right? but I can't ever remember to take a photo before I get started on a project (I'm brilliant like that). 

 
anyway, it all started with a shiny tin pail and some un-pretty print on it that I didn't like.

All it took was some FolkArt paint by Plaid (I used Basil Green and Wicker White) to change up the silly little tin into something fun!

 
Prima fabric flowers and rhinestones .. beautiful ribbons from dear Miss Kim Duran (so many lovely colors to choose from in her etsy shop) ..

And some very, very special trinket pins from sweet Miss Patty. Thank you so much Patty..... I have been saving them for ever so long, waiting on the perfect project. Here they are, mixed with a few of my own berry pins.

(I decided that if trinket pins can go right side up, they can go upside down too)

  
Other goodies from Melissa Frances (resin keyhole) and Want2Scrap (chipboard swirl).

thank you for visiting!

~ vio

Today I ...........

... felt grungy and therefore made grungy things. (okay, not grungy, but I'm getting tired of saying "shabby" so I need to find a new word)

... stamped with paint ~ messy but fun!

... hung a heart in a frame and I feel so pleased about it (nothing is prettier than a bling-y heart)

... cut out rose motifs from scraps of cloth and sprinkled them with pearls ...

The lovely ladies at Want2Scrap invited me to guest-design for them this July. I have never before used their chipboard and goodies, but they got me started and I am afraid I am hooked. Here is a list of the Want2scrap goodies I used for this project:

~ scalloped chipboard album
~ chipboard embellishments
~ rhinestone heart

I painted the chipboards with wicker-white acrylic paint (FolkArt) and sanded it before stitching and embellishing. The rhinestone heart was originally a ribbon slide, but it was easy to clip off the "slide" section.

Visit the Want2Scrap blog today for more information about this calendar, AND photos and details of another project I am not going to share on my blog (so you better bop over there quick!) ;)

 
Other goodies came from Melissa Frances (5th Avenue patterned paper, resin frame, and crystals) and Crafty Secrets (Artsy Banner stamps and Tophat ABC stamps).

As you can see, I got an early start on next year's calendar. I thought it would be nice not to rush for once ... and I hope to get some special pages done for the inside. Maybe over the next few months I can do 2-3 pages each time and by the end of the year, the whole calendar will be ready for 2012.

- - - - - - - - - -

I hope my friends in the US had a wonderful 4th of July. Freedom is a beautiful thing!

I grew up in the American schools, so I know all about the war for independence and 1776 and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and everybody else :) .. I even had to memorize the Pledge of Allegiance and ......... the Gettysburg Address (which is not related to 4th of July I know).
I still love every bit of American history I learned.

sorry for rambling!
hope your day is a wonderful one!

~ vio

 

 
 


 
 

a brand new week

... and time for some new Crafty Secrets projects.

Here's a list of the supplies I used on this card:

Creating with Vintage Patterns CD ~ gorgeous patterned papers, you will love them!
embossed frames ~ twelve in a pack .. they will last for ever so long
Love and Support stamp set ~ one of my favorite sentiments ..

   
I will end here today as I had a flu relapse over the weekend. This morning in music lesson my teacher was chiding me for remaining sick the whole week .. he thought I might faint during the lesson ;)

we'll see how it goes from here.

thanks for visiting!

~ vio

 

July 2011 release at The Craft's Meow

 
Happy July!! 

I think I've finally conquered the flu!!! Now to get rid of the horrid cough it's left me with! thank you everyone for your kind thoughts.

Because I got sick, I missed two days of previews with the TCM team, so for today's blog hop, I made a card using both stamp sets that I didn't get to share. 

(please excuse any quirky details of this creation; I made this card at the peak-of-the-flu = all-time-low of creative juice) ;)

 
A paper-pieced carousel from Life is a Carnival ... (it did take a long time, if you were wondering) :D

And a little banner made from a sun-ray stamp in Baggin' Some Rays. I stamped the image onto the reverse of the patterned paper, trimmed out the rays and then continued cutting to remove the center circle section. The rays then open up to form a banner! so fun.

 
So are you ready to see the new stamp sets?.........

Lovely Birds

 

Life is a Carnival

 

It's a Banner Day
(coordinates with Spellbinders(TM)

Banner Basics Three, which was also
designed by Nina Brackett)

 

 

Baggin' Some Rays

Do you want to win all four sets? One of you will win the entire release through a random drawing from all comments left on the TCM blog release post.

Blog hop fun! please visit all the other ladies and see what they have up their sleeves:

Alice Wertz

Amy Tsuruta

Amy Young

Debbie Pamment

Jean Martin

Jenny Suchin

Jessica Fick

Kim Yu

Lindsay Amrhein

Lynn Miller

Miesje Flach

Nadia Cannizzo

Nina Brackett

Ren-Yi Lo

Sarah Martina Parker

... and me is the little girl at the end of the hop!! :) from here, make your way back to the TCM blog, and leave your comment there for a chance to win something super.

again, happy july!
~vio