Gossamer Blue ~ November +Color Wire & Etsy

I'm really liking this theme idea each month. It makes the creative process go a little faster. The hardest part though this month was coming up with the name. Believe it or not, 'Southwest Pastels' actually took some time to think of... my brain is on a creative overload this week from Halloween preparations, class parties, and time spent looking at houses, there is no creativity left. I used it all up this week. So, I'll throw it out there, feel free to leave me an idea for a better name for this post. 

The concept however, is one that I love. A clean Southwest feel with lots of pretty pastels and tiny potted cactus plants! Keep scrolling down to see what I came up with this month for Gossamer Blue!

I'll start with my favorite project first! This past weekend our friends daughter turned one and had a little birthday party to celebrate. I always like to show up with at least one gift that is hand made. (I think people might expect it to) but it makes gift giving seem a little more personal. So, I took a photo album that I've had stashed away for years and decided that I would make a simple photo book. Just a place where mom could add photos to, but not necessarily have to scrapbook them. Quick and easy! 

This month's kits use lots of Maggie Holmes products like these cute embellished tags! I pre cut about 20 small pages and embellished half of them with tags, typed sayings, a few journal cards and a couple of sewn sequin packets. 

I let the kids each pick out a gift for Kinsey as well. True to form, Chase went with a toy and Alaina chose little girl clothes for her. (I forgot how cute baby girl clothes are!) Wrapping the clothes was as easy as finding a box and I wanted the gift wrap to match: light muted colors and simply embellished. Just some vintage lace, a few tags and a pair of feathers. 

and the tiny birthday card I made 

More Maggie Holmes stuff! I love brads and if you break the prongs off of the backs, you can glue them to almost anything! I made a little memory board using one of my favorite color combos right now: coral-navy blue-gold and turned the brads into push-pins. 

There are still a few more projects to post but they'll have to wait until mid-month. I also want to do a few Fall craft tutorials throughout the month in a similar style. I was telling a friend of mine that I think I'll finally embrace of Southwest Fall season (or lack of one) and add a twist to all of the traditional themed crafts. Kind of excited about seeing all these ideas I've been scribbling down coming to life this month! 

It's back! My color wire that is. It's been quite some time since I've put one together but last month I started playing around with some color ideas and decided to put together some different combinations. Ultimately this is the one I would use and one that inspired a collection of new products for my etsy shop: Citron Faire. 

black raspberry ~ peach sand ~ carnation pink ~ army green ~ spiced gingerbread

Thank you so much for stopping in today! Hope you had a wonderful Halloween and enjoy your weekend! ~ Tara

sweet november: inspiration

When I think inspiration, color comes to mind. Of course. I have alot of fun putting together my color wires, I start with a stack of magazines and a clip board. Usually, I have a color combination already in mind that I want to use, but sometimes I'll see an photo in a magazine that is so pretty or inspiring that it will shift the initial color combination. 

For this color pallet I chose warm tones inspired by traditional Fall colors with the addition of a rich berry color. It's always been one of my favorite colors to use, finding scrapbooking papers in that color isn't always easy but I can almost always find it in fabric! 

dove grey - warm pumpkin - black raspberry - cedar brown

The next time you have a project to complete, or even just a scrapbook layout, try putting together a 'project board.' Just grab a clip board and add things that you find inspirational to help you with the creative process! I love making these little fabric charts - I take small snips of fabric and sew them together. Seeing a combination of fabrics helps me decide on the colors I want to use or the patterns that I want to combine for my own projects! 

Color is what inspires me to create, what inspires you? 

xo ~ Tara

sweet november: orange

Today's word is orange. I know, the first thing that comes to mind right now is probably pumpkins, but I was thinking about a darker orange, like burnt pumpkin or terra cotta orange. I created a Fall color combination inspired by a collection of tiny potted succulents and spools of thread. 

granite- terra-cotta- pumpkin cream-patina-peach

This is the easiest crafty project ever! If you have 5 minutes, a few paints and a little canvas, you have time to be creative! Chase and I love making these, we choose a combination of paints, some small paint brushes and we just 'scribble' various colors onto the canvas. I think these canvases look best when collected and displayed with other framed art pieces. I'll share my Fall art collection this month, I'm still adding to it! 

 Hope you're having a wonderful Tuesday afternoon!  

xo~ Tara

Saturday Color Combo, collage pages

 

 

It's a kind of a tad bit late this evening, but I really wanted to get this post up at some point today! In between our running around, visiting family, trips to the park and evening walks looking for neighbor cats, I've managed to squeeze in a little creative time. Then today, after visiting our local farmers market for some organic fruit, a quick trip to the barber shop to get Chase a haircut and some very successful vintage book shopping, I headed back to my parents house to do some crafting and set up for a few photos. Fruit ~ old books ~ scrapbooking, could a Saturday afternoon possibly get any better?  

 

As for our color combination, at the start of the week we spent the day at Marine World where I took this photo of a pretty vintage style carousel and that's what I'm using as the inspiration for this weeks color combination!

 

 the color palette for the week is:

 

mermaid teal - Parisian pink - French custard - antique marigold 

 

I've been slowly working on my collage book this past week, collecting random papers and using my mom's dinosaur like sewing machine (seriously it's huge and bulky!) to sew the layers of papers together. I love this color combination, and when mixed with a few subtle patterns I think it's really pretty and perfect for summer!    

 

 

 

 

 

I spy with my little eye a mistake with this page.... do you see it?

 

Yep, I stamped the wrong date. So irritating and of course it looked right when I was setting it (because it's reversed on the stamp) and I'm not the patient type so testing it beforehand didn't happen. I just went for it, and then realized what I had done.....in black ink.... That's when you take a deep breath and say 'oh well.' I still like the page even with the wrong date!
 

I found a couple of interesting quotes referencing traveling/vacations while reading this week. Ultimately I went with the above quote but I also liked this one:

"When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. That does not mean it is brighter and lovelier; it just means that sweet kindly home suffers in comparison to tarted up foreign places with all their jewels on." - Catherynne Valente

 

 I think that wraps up all of my project photos! Tomorrows plans include a trip to the rock shop (for my future gemologist Alaina) a trip to Chases favorite park here in town and I'll be making a peach tart made entirely of fruit picked from the trees in my mom's garden. (I'm thinking we could get use to this vacation schedule) Oh and some more photo editing, I want to post some of our vacation photos so far!

 

I hope you are having the loveliest of weekends! xo ~ Tara

 



Saturday Color Combination

Hello again! 

 I thought this weekend needed a pretty color combination! Since summer is in full swing here, it means I'm spending more time inside and that means more time to be creative! Jessica asked me last month "Tara, I miss your color wires, when are you going to do another one?" (Sometimes even the best ideas just need a break!) So, I put one together last month, completely forgot about it until yesterday when I wanted to do a little scrapbooking and needed some color inspiration.

 

coral - peach - sea glass- dove grey 

Black and white stripes, pastels and a gold nautical embellishment - sure, why not! There are so many fun trends going on in scrapbooking right now, I love the randomness of it all and how un-matchy things are. Then there are some trends that I think I will never grow tired of; black & white stripes, ink splatters my type writer and sewing machine. What are your most loved trends right now or ones that you've held onto over the seasons? 

I also wanted to share this last month, but time got away from me! I sent off a little package of collected things, all inspired by a color combination. This one went to Jessica, a belated birthday present that included some of the brightest fabric I've ever seen! It's a fun way of sending crafty stuff to a friend!  

and here's a little peek of a page that I did for a fun sketch challenge! I'll be posting the details this coming week on where to find the challenge. I'm excited about this layout too, I typically have a hard time using sketches and I don't think I've ever created a layout that uses 5 photos, so it was a double win for me with this layout! :) 

and now that school is out and I'm not in the classroom anymore, I've been filling my days with going to the gym (yep, never thought I'd hear those words out of my mouth or that I really like it too!), summer cooking (super light healthy meals and tons of salads) scrapbooking and playing with some new products for etsy. 

The newest collection for the shop is called Market Place, lot's of vintage and office type supplies for scrapbooking and journaling. I'm working on some simple summer office paper journals for this summer's vacations, just little places to take notes and record the happenings from each day. 

I've also taken on the largest scrapbooking venture ever (for me anyways): a custom wedding scrapbook - 20 pages of dark blue - white - kraft - and light teal and just a tiny bit of red. (I love those colors together!) I figure I need to spend all of next week working to finish it up in time for the kids and I to go on vacation. Just 15 more days til vacation ~ let the count down begin.

Enjoy your weekend! xo~  tara