Photo Credit: Anna Maria Horner Blog
If I've a color palette hero, it's Anna Maria Horner. For years, I've been following her fabric destiny and along the way, I've been in awe of her vibrant beautiful patterns - geometrics and florals included. I simply can't get enough of her blog, where the photography is often rich and overflowing with intense hues that aspire to be on display, whether via a quilt, dress, or wall hanging. I visit there frequently. And absurdly enough, I've this crazy dream that someday she'll make us scrapbookers pretty papers w/coinciding matching embellishments. I should probably put in a request to her for a Anna Maria scrapbook collection. Wonder if she'd take interest in the idea, 'cause I'd cave and buy all of it! I love her COLOR choices!
So, why my starting with Anna this morning? It's because I recently ran into a couple of her collections at a local boutique/homemade-supply store called "Digs" in Minneapolis. I've been meaning to tell ya about the place since my last visit there a few years ago, when it was located on the outskirts of town. They made a big move to the cities, and I couldn't be more thrilled! They're a super hip, trendy supply house of fabrics, ribbon, yarn, etc. During my visit to the new location, I picked up a couple of fat quarters of Anna's fabrics, brought them home, made a few flowers, and threw a tiny sample of one on a layout (above). The punchy yellow is just what the layout needed! I plan to revisit Digs to buy more of Anna's gorgeous patterns as I'd love to incorporate more of them in to my projects. Thank-You Digs!
Very fun place! If you're ever in the Twin Cities area, this is a must stop shop! I'll share more of it with you later on...
As to the layout, enlisted is a bunch of close-ups below, along with a few general ideas. Take a peek, even though Christmas is well beyond us already. Personally, I've still a number of Christmas memories to catch-up on! I imagine they'll be finished and tucked away in albums by Spring. :)
So, I caved, and bought Martha Stewart's Score Board. I've been postponing the purchase of the gizmo for a long time. I didn't really see the point of owning one, but now that I've laid claim to it, I'm more than happy to dedicate space to the thing via my crammed scrapbook space. I even made my very first accordion flower using the handy dandy tool. :) It was so much easier to make than I thought it would be, and with the board, I can make them any size I want!
Another Tara Anderson fabric/thread flower. Slowly, my collection of her handmade flowers are disappearing. I hear there might be more on the way though, thankfully.
Had you spotted Anna's fabric? I tucked it beneath an old chipboard frame, which allowed me to skip the adhesive issue. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to adhere fabric to paper. Anybody have any ideas?
The epoxy heart set is from another old, Jo Ann Fabric item (Heidi Grace - love her stuff!) I had sitting in my collection. I'm curious to find out if there's a technique out there to make similar style, clear epoxy shapes. I'd like to learn to make my own...
Old holiday chipboard shapes from K & Company's "Swell Noel" - one of my favorite holiday releases from them.
I'm all about bringing together elements from a vast variety of manufacturers and altering their appearance slightly with the addition of other materials. For example, these cute red banners are from Bella Blvd, and the letters, Jenni Bowlin. Behind them sits a large American Crafts Label Sticker framed in Vanilla cardstock.
I'm attempting to make the process of creating my flowers simpler, so this time around, I went with almost all October Afternoon flower die-cuts. The folded patterned paper layer is from Bella Blvd.'s Christmas Wishes collection. Would you of guessed that? The vintage leaf and ribbon is Tara's - not surprisingly.
I'll end it here for the moment - I've ample work ahead of me today! Take care, everyone!
