Hop Art Studio

Flowers for Daisy

How to begin this post. I've typed it several times and deleted it. It's hard to type and not cry.

Daisy, sweet, beautiful, strong, faithful to the Lord, giving, loving, funny, wife, mother, grandmother and friend.

Daisy has touched everyone that meets her. Even now, during this difficult time in her life she is a pillar of strength and has an amazing positive attitude. Her faith is unwavering.

I don't know where to begin, I have a hard time saying what I want to say.

I think that the Lord uses each and everyone of us in a special way. I wanted to do something to let Daisy know how much she has touched my life. I wanted to use my gifts somehow.

The Lord kept pulling on my heart strings, kept whispering in my ear until I listened. I called Gina and we discussed what was on my mind. I wanted to do something in honor of Daisy. Something that would make a difference. Use my talents and create a set and donate a portion in Daisy's name to the American Cancer Society. Gina is so sweet and giving. She said "Let's do it!"

With the help of my friend Fran (in the pink shirt) and Daisy's husband we secretly started to create Flowers for Daisy. I included Daisy's 2 favorite bible verses, the ones that are giving her strength through this difficult period in her life and other sayings that have meaning to her. I wanted to draw something that represented not only Daisy but that would be timeless and that everyone would be able to use over and over again. Daisies! Of course what else could be better and more appropriate. Daisies come in many shapes and sizes and colors. Daises are beautiful and represent a New Day! Yes, daisies. That's it. I drew the set and Fran and I surprised Daisy with it. She loved the idea!

Cancer has touched so many lives. Each and everyone of us knows of someone who is battling against it. I wanted to be able to help out not only Daisy but others who are going through what she is going through. To help out in some way.

When you purchase this set $4.00 of every retail set sold will go to the American Cancer Society until the end of August through a donation of part of the proceeds from both Gina K. Designs and myself.

You will be getting lots of wonderful inspirations for this set, Flowers for Daisy, from some of our dear friends who jumped right in when we asked if they would like to help. Blessing and more blessing!

Check these talented blogs within the next couple of weeks for examples of Flowers for Daisy

Amy_Westerman

Anne_Sanborn

Debbie_Olson

Keri_Lee_Sereika

Lauren_Meader

Sharon_Harnist

Taylor_Van_Bruggen

I'm really not a good scrap booker. But I wanted to be able to share a picture of Daisy with you. I wanted for you to think out of the box with the set and use it in other ways. I have created lots of fun things that I will be sharing with you in the next couple of weeks. A watercoloring tutorial and something very different using my new set.

Until then, you can get even more inspiration today from our talented team of designers who are premiering Flowers for Daisy today.

Emily_Giovanni

Joanne_Basile

Julie_Koerber

Michelle_Giraud

And don't forget to hop on over to Gina's blog for a chance to win Flowers for Daisy stamp set

http://blog.ginakdesigns.com/

Thank you everyone for helping with your purchase of this new set.

To clarify any confusion on the proceeds:

Asela and Gina are both giving a portion of the proceeds to equal $4.00 on each set we sell. We added the words "retail sales" because our donation amount will be slightly less on those sets that we wholesale to stamping and scrapbooking stores.

Crazy Scrap Idea

You know how you find yourself in a situation where you just can't say no? Well, it's happened to me, again. I just couldn't say no. Even though logically I know that it's crazy!

My friend, and co-teammom came up with this idea that she just couldn't shake. She knew it was insane. But, still in her heart, she just wanted to do it. Once she let me in on her lil' idea I had to explain to her what she was about ready to get herself into. Ahhhhhhh hahhhhhh...this is where the I just can't say NO comes in. Sure I'll help you out with your crazy idea! No problem. It's for the boys, right? LOL. OH boy , oh boy.

The logistics-have the photographer take one pic of each player. Have the pictures printed out (400 of them!), crop the pics to size, buy 20 6x6 albums (thank God her mom works at Michaels and will get them dirt cheap!), crop 400 blue card stock pages, cut out 400 names, punch out 400 numbers, punch out 400 brown ovals, let's not forget the football background paper needs cutting also, along with the blue picture border... whew!!!!

I created a mock up page to give her an idea of what the pages could look like. I kept it simple as I will have 3 other moms helping out. Simple layout, so the moms could slap the pages together quickly.

We will be including the album in a giftbag the day of our awards banquet. And I know that the moms will appreciate the album. But do you really think they'll realize all the work it took? LOL...maybe.

I took this picture while hiking in the Santa Monica Mountain range. This is a rather cool hike. It takes you deep into the mountain range. Right to the spot where they filmed MASH the movie. Still at the site are a few props. An ambulance and a jeep. All rusted out.

I just loved how beautiful the lone tree stood there at the side of the trial. So majestic. Someday I'm going to use this photo as the subject of a painting.

Doodles by Angie Briggs (swirl5), background paper Scrapbook.com

Digi-Scrapbooking

I have scrapbooked the traditional way and really enjoy it. Although I must admit that I haven't gotten into anything really fancy on my pages. I'm the kind of scrapbooker that "gets her done". Slap that photo on the page and journal. Tie the pages all together with some coordinating paper. And I'm done!

I have created 3 scrapbooks using Archiver's program. These, imo, are a fast way to  create a memory book of an event or year.  I didn't want to leave California after 4 years empty handed, with nothing to show anyone back on the east coast. Archiversscrapbooking

Thanks to Sarah Vrolyk I tried digital scrapbooking. Have read about it in magazines. And I must admit it intrigues me. So I downloaded some papers and elements and tried my hand at it. Oh boy, oh boy....talk about time consuming. I thought it would never be done.  But it was. Here's my first page ever. Don't look too closely, you'll notice that I seem to have multiple light sources, LOL.

I know, I know...it's a bit 1980's feeling.

So I tried it again the next day. Have to admit, the second time it was a bit easier. I think I like this page better. Not so fussy. And at least it looks a bit more 21st century.

So, overall, I think this was a fun thing to try and something I believe I will attempt again.

All papers and elements from Scrapbook.com

Create It

I came across this one page flyer at Michaels a while back called Create It: Collage Friendship Book. The flyer shows you how to  take a childern's chunky book and turn it into a work of art.

Of course I had to give it a try. I headed off to our local Tuesday Morning and picked up a book for about $2. All kinds of ideas went swimming in my head on the way home.

I had also found this really neat scrapbooking paper at Tuesday Morning and I thought it would be perfect for my first book.

Emily on SCS sent me this wonderful card with a fairy on it. The colors and glitter were perfect for the front cover. (Hope it's okay Emily that I used it.)

Next I started working on the inside covers. I alternated the inside pages. Two solid the next two using the scrapbooking paper.

The fun part came finding neat things to fill the pages with. I had some cute vellum envelopes and tags. And of course family pictures.

It wasn't complete without metal embellishments.

The vellum envelopes are ones that ATC artist use. They are the perfect size to hide messages that we have written.

I loved adding the rick rack ribbon to all of the tags through out the book. It seems to unify them all.

The vellum sayings are a JoAnns find. They come in little books. All you need do is tear the sheet out that you want in you creation.

I used theWindow punch from SU! and by placing it on the folded edge of a piece of paper I was able to create the tabs for the outside of the pages.

These books are easy to make. The only time consuming part is taking off the outer plastic coating of the chunky books. Use an exacto knife wedged between the top layer to pull it away from the chip board beneath. Once you remove all the plastic top layer you'll be left with a chip board book. If you are lucky you'll get a book where the first layer peels off in one piece.