Speckled Egg's Petite Inspiration Box Swap: Birthday Edition!

If you follow my blog pretty regularly, you know that I like "collecting" or should I say "hoarding" vintage goods. Of course I like creating with vintage goodies and swapping them too! I love participating in swaps, and I particularly enjoy Heather Rowley's Petite Inspiration Box Swaps. In addition to hosting several of these swaps per year, Heather is known for her Speckled Egg Shop. If you are looking for a one-stop-shop with the most amazing, unique and beautiful vintage treasures out there, Heather's Shop is definitely the place. I am obsessed with the prize ribbons, her assortment of millinery, and of course the cutest, dainty little mushrooms you have ever seen.

The theme for this swap was "birthday." I was elated to discover that I was chosen to be in Heather's group. I was both excited and challenged to come up with something amazing for Heather. How could I possibly come up with something unique that could "wow" her personally? My other swap partner was the super talented Jennifer Morris of Amusing Provincial. She has a beautiful blog, sharing her insight and love of farm life.

One of the best parts of the swap is that not only do we make new friends, we are able to other's likes and adapt our box specifically to them. Heather loves pretty paper and ribbon & lace in an array of whites & neutrals. Living on a farm, Jennifer adores sheep & chickens. Her color scheme of choice is light blues & lavender.

When creating the boxes for my partners, I like them both to have a similar cohesive feel but adapting them to their individual tastes. For these boxes, I used some of the oldest, brittle velvet flocked wallpaper I think I could possibly find. Talk about fragile, it toget a feel of each ok me several attempts to get this wrapped neatly and safely around the matchboxes. As many of you are aware, I have been on a glittered trophy kick lately and wanted to incorporate that into my overall design. Recently finding these tiny trophies, I knew they would be the perfect size for the top. I covered the trophies in Martha Stewart's fine glitter and added some kraft krinkles in the top for the birds to nestle in. I created the little birthday party hats with kraft cardstock, vintage ricrac and pompoms. Using vintage seem binding with ricrac & waxed twine, I tied the darling wood banner pieces (My Mind's Eye) for the perfect finishing touch.

As you can see by the photos, I filled their boxes with lots of fun goodies. Heather's was primarily filled with lots of vintage laces, pearls & papers. Jennifer's was filled with lots of images of sheep & chickens just as requested. Look at the Martha Stewart sheep punch...how fun is that!

As for the boxes I received, you guessed it. I asked for everything in aqua and red. I was over-the-top excited upon opening my beautiful boxes. From appliqued samples and felted balls to the most amazing vintage trims and mushrooms, I am happily fulfilled. Not only will I be able to create with all the beautiful trinkets inside, the boxes are proudly displayed in my scraproom.

Thank you Heather & Jennifer for a wonderful swap, and thanks to all my supportive readers who have read this far! I am in hopes that Heather & Jennifer will post pictures of their beautiful creations on their blogs soon. To see lots of the other birthday boxes created, you can see a full gallery on Flickr: Speckled Egg's Petite Inspiration Box Swap.

Maybe next time you will join in the fun?
Amy

PS, If you want to check out my other box swaps for Speckled Egg, they are the Curiosities/Halloween Swap and the Flea Market Swap.

New Calendar, New Theme...

Hi Everyone!

This is a new version of my perpetual calendars using a "wood" circle as the base. It is smaller scale than the typical calendars I create but jam packed with just as much unique charm. When Ormolu was looking for a few interim design team members, I made this in hopes of "wowing" them. Even though I didn't make the cut, I had so much fun incorporating lots of the Ormolu products into my piece....the fabulous/fun 2-Day Hooray Days of the Week & Number Flair Buttons as well as the Line & Letter Chevron Tags. Rather than creating the grid, I used this calendar grid stamp from Stampin' Up that worked perfectly. To spice it up a bit, I added washi tapes from Martha Stewart, K&Co Smash, Cavallini & Ki Memories' Hot Date.

For presentation, when taking pictures I enjoy adding props as a backdrop. Aren't these vintage tartan plaid cannister/coolers so fun? I picked them up at a yard sale a few months back. They totally make me think of summertime and picnics. Speaking of picnics, Paper Issues has a new theme up: Picnics & Patriots! Since Independence Day is right around the corner, what a perfect time to share your 4th of July and/or picnic projects. Not only could your fab project be featured at Paper Issues, Cassie has a wonderful giveaway from Pink Paislee's newest patriotic collection, Declaration. Aren't these papers so dreamy?

Also, if you are in the shopping state of mind you should stop by Paper Issues Shop for some of the newest & coolest scrapping products around...not to mention you can get it for 20% OFF if you use CURLYQ as the promo code at check out! So what are you waiting for? Enjoy!

"follow your heart & your dreams will come true..."

My niece had her 5th Grade Recognition/Graduation a few weeks ago, and I wanted to make her something special as she says goodbye to the elementary years and hello to middle school and so on. Her life as she knows it is about to change in a big way.

For the child who has everything, it is very hard to buy for. I knew a "handmade" gift would be much more meaningful and heartfelt. To begin with, I took a 6X6 window box and placed map paper in the background. It is from Basic Grey's Wander Collection. I began layering lots of vivid papers on top of one another. I knew I wanted a "winged heart" of sorts to go along with the sentiment, "follow your heart & your dreams will come true..." Digging in my stash I found vintage ceramic wings and placed them inside the window box. I adhered the heart lock on top of the glass rather than underneath for a neat dimensional effect. Placing lots of design elements in white and kraft against the bright colors made for lots of nice visual contrast and I am very happy with the results.

Here is a list of materials I used: Basic Grey Wander Paper, Crate Paper Farmhouse Paper, Martha Stewart Daisy Fan Punch, Ki Scribbles Glitter Border, Tim Holtz Regal Crest Die, kraft cardstock, Bazzill jewels, vintage red/yellow tickets, blue thread, cast iron star, ceramic wings, metal heart lock & keys, typewriter...

Now onto some exciting news! Last week I entered my "bee" card into the Kraft Journal's Emboss & Embellish Challenge and am their featured artist today! They have weekly challenges that are so fun to play along with, and I am a kraft paper junkie so it is a win-win for me. :) Speaking of, the challenge at the Kraft Journal this week is Graduation Celebration. What a perfect time to share this graduation gift!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and a sincere thank you to the Kraft Journal for such wonderful recognition!
Amy