Helena's pretty pretty pages!

Hi everyone!

First I wanted to show you Helena's soft and delicate

page - Stunning!

she created with the papers from Fabscraps in beautiful grey, pink and white shades.

To add contrast she used the black doily and black punched edges!

using this months color add and gesso she painted the fabulous chipboard pieces from the kit.

She add some glossy accents and Prima button!

The Texturez from the color add-on gave the roses a fabulous shabby look!

Next up is  her sweet version of this months sketch!

I love the cascading flowers!

here are some close ups of the details!

Thanks for stopping by!

September Kit Premiere

Our September kit is here!

Simply Shabby Chic

We're bringing you some gorgeous, brand new Prima, some oh-so-shabby Fabscraps, and lots of other sweet goodies in this kit.  If you'd like to see the full list of kit "ingredients" and our coordinating add ons, stop by our website or our store!  We have just a few left, so you won't want to miss out...

Along with the new kit, we have a new sketch, and a new sketch challenge.  Suepup has created this beautiful sketch to inspire you, and our September sketch challenge will be based on this sketch - the only rules to the challenge are to use the sketch, and have your layout submitted in time (don't worry, you have a whole month to complete it!).  And as always with our challenges, you don't have to use our kits to enter, you can use items from your own stash.  Here's the link to enter!  Simply Shabby Chic Sketch Challenge.  And here's the fabulous sketch for this month:

We know you don't just want to see a kit and sketch, you want some eye candy, and we surely have some of that this month!  I thought I'd share a few projects from the ladies on our design team, and if you want to see more, just visit their blogs, you kind find links to all of them on our sidebar...

Cathi O'Neill - our Sept. Guest Designer!

Lisa Nazario-Gregory- her 1st layout as an SOE Sponsored Designer!

Mandy Zimmerman

Nadia Cannizzo

Romy Veul

Kathy Mosher

Keren Tamir

Helena Johansson

Renea Harrison

And we'll have more inspiration coming throughout the month, so be sure to check back!

Thank you for stopping by, we appreciate it and always love your comments!

~Melinda~

More from Helena!

This tag is brilliant!  I LOVE the glasses and the dangling heart!

She made it for the tag swap on the forum!

She also made this super sweet card!

love it!

and the she created this glorious layout!

look at all the details!  Simply fantastic!

Helena's August Kit Creations

Hi everyone!

Today we are going to spotlight some of Helena's gorgeous August creations from the 

Sweet Summer Nights kit

Her first creation just floored me!  

This is her take on the August SOE sketch

 Look at all the dimension with the beautiful flower from the flower add on!

 and don't you LOVE the way she treated the gate the gems from the kit?

 On her next project she used the stencil (from the embellishment add on)

texture past and Lindy's Stampgang mists that comes with the color add-on.

and of course the gorgeous butterflies from Renea Harrisson - Reneabouquets

 The beautiful Prima flower from the flower add on and the petaloo velvet hydrangea

are the perfect accent to this fabulous page

I love the peak a boo doily and layers!

Her third page she decided to make a circular page using three of the papers from the beautiful kit.

she used a doily, texture paste and Lindy's Stampgang mist from the color add-on

 Look at all the layers!  and the super sweet butterfly!

 she used flowers from previous kits and this months kit!

another angle of all those fabulous flowers!

Make sure you stop by our gallery and check out all the amazing work by our DT!

Ocean Background Tutorial

Good morning, and happy Monday!

We've got great little mixed media tutorial for you today.  Helena is showing us how she created the gorgeous background on this layout:

Here's what you need:

Paper Bo Bunny Prairie Chic, Laundry (from the July Home Sweet Home main kit)

Paper Pink Paislee Cottage Farms, Crate (from the coordinating paper add-on)

Cheesecloth (from the main kit)

Texture Paste

Lindys Stamp Gang mist, Baby Blue Eyes (from previous Color add-on)

Shimmerz Texturez, Tidy Widy (from the Color add-on) and Patina (from previous Color add-on)

First I cut out some of the pattern from the Bo Bunny paper and glued them on the Pink Paislee paper. I had a design in my head, so I knew how I wanted to place my photo and flowers. I cut the pattern so the blue paper pieces will show beneath everything else when the layout's finished.

Then I cut some pieces of cheesecloth and laid them on top of the blue paper pieces.

I then used texture paste as glue on the cheesecloth as you can see in the photo. Don't overdo this step and take too much, you want some of the cheesecloth as it is to get the "ocean feeling" :)

I used Lindys Stamp Gang mist, Baby blue eyes, and misted the entire layout. A fantastic color!

After I glued my photo and embellishment into place, I took out the Shimmerz Texturez (Tidy Widy and Patina) and applied this amazing medium with my fingertips. I just put some Texturez on here and there until I was satisfied. I used this on the chipboard pieces too, after I painted them with white gesso.

And here is my final layout:

Helena's New "Shabby Edges" Tutorial

Check out this gorgeous layout Helena Johansson did with our August kit...

Want to know how she got the edges of her layout to look that way?  Well here you go, she's done a sweet little tutorial telling you how!

Step 1:Choose three papers that coordinate well together. I've chosen two papers from Fabscraps and one from Kaisercraft, included in the Scraps of Elegance August kit, Summer Haven. Pink and brown is a
lovely color combination!

Step 2:Use a diecut paper of your choice as a template and cut all three papers. (Of course you don't have to do this part, you can go with 12x12 pages or round pages or what ever you like best!!)

Step 3:Cut the second paper (the pink one here) with a decorative scissors, just a bit smaller than the first paper. Cut the third paper a bit smaller than the second paper.

Step 4:Distress and ink the edges (only ink on the paper that you cut with decorative scissors).

Step 5:Glue papers together and fold the edges all around. Rip it here and there to make it even shabbier.

Step 6:Use gesso and texture paste to paint the edges, try to not make it too "even" - just a bit here and a bit there until you are satisfied!

Step 7:Here's my finished layout!