Zva Creative April DT Blog Hop!

Zva Creative and our talented Design Team welcome you to join us for our April Blog Hop! We are happy to have you join us and hope you enjoy all that we have to share with you along the way!

The Blog Hop begins at Zva Creative's NEW blog! Be sure head on over to check it out! Leave a comment there for a chance to win an extra prize package just for visiting the blog and telling us that you stopped by! You will also find a complete list of all the participating blogs there (in case there is a glitch along the way).

As you know, Zva offers many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project. If you like what you see you can find a list of stores and online retailers that sell Zva HERE.

If you would like to play along with our design team, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way!

Hidden on FIVE of the designer's blogs is a Zva Creative prize package! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, April 30th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, May 1st.

The 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, May 2nd on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Zva's blog as well. We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday... plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there.

All you need to do is leave a comment on this Blog Hop post... you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. However, the more times you comment along the blog hop path, the more chances you will have to win.

We also thought it would be more fun to add even more chances to win our blog hop prize! To increase your chances of winning:

* Comment to let us know that you posted on your Facebook page about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)

* Comment to let us know that you "tweeted" about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)

* Comment to let us know that you asked your local store to carry Zva creative products. If they already do, that's fantastic, maybe you can suggest other products that they don't carry.

*Hop over to Zva's blog and leave a comment there to tell us that you made it there!

The blog hop begins here at Zva Creative's blog. Your next stop is Carole. Enjoy!

Thank you for joining us!

P.S. Mark your calendar to join us again on May 28th for our next Zva blog hop!

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How about some Flower child?

Good morning everyone! Hope all is doing well! Today I would like to share with you a quick layout using lots of the papers from the Flower Child Collection by G.C.D Studios. I LOVE the brights! It's been awhile since I scrapped with these types of colors but I am in love! The colors and patterns are so fun!



Supplies used:

Flower Child patterned papers: G.C.D Studios
Bling: Creative Memories
Cardstock: Creative Memories
Baker's Twine: Scrap Pantry (Esty)
Paper ribbon: Creative Memories
Teeny alphas: Glitz Design
Tag punch: Creative Memories
Corner rounder: Creative Memories
Pen: Adhesive: Creative Memories

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Gardening

Overall, today has been a good day. We spent most of the morning outside playing while daddy worked on our new garden. We've been living in this house for almost 9 years and have yet to do anything in the yard... our neighbor's garden looks beautiful and then when you look in our yard, it's like blah... but we are changing that. Next week, I think I'll go purchase some flowers.

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Good bye!

Hello ladies, Nicole here. I just wanted to take a few minutes to thank Heidi for having me on the G.C.D Studios DT this past year. Being on the team was fun and I learned a great deal from her. Congrats to the new team and I look forward to seeing your creations! I must admit, I am a little sad but I'll still be playing with my G.C.D Studios papers and to prove it, I have a few layouts to share with you using the new collections.

I love the "Happy Days" collection! At first, I thought it was too girly for me, but after I really looked past all the pink, I noticed the adorable patterns! I love that I could save a few dollars by cutting patterns from paper to create my own embellies!



Supplies:
Patterned paper:G.C.D Studios
Thickers: American Crafts
Pearl: Zva Creative
Corner rounder: Creative Memories

Here's a layout using lots of Splendor papers by G.C.D Studios. I totally love this layout! Isn't it pretty? I like how it is pretty but yet masculine. This is a picture of my beautiful sister, Jamie with her amazing boyfriend. She's very lucky to have such a great guy!



Supplies used:
Splendor patterned papers: G.C.D Studios
Brad: G.C.D Studios
Labels: G.C.D Studios
Flower: Maya Road
Embossed cardstock: Creative Memories
Teeny alphas: Glitz Design
Heart punch: Creative Memories
Pen/Adhesives: Creative Memories

And Here's a quick layout that I created using lots of papers from the Bonjour collection! I just love the turquoise and browns! These papers are perfect for those of us who have boys. I love that the patterns in some of the papers are big enough that you can cut to make your very own embellishments! You can see how I did this with the patterns on my layout. Super easy!



Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have a great day!

Supplies used:
Bonjour patterned papers: G.C.D Studios
Button: Epiphany Crafts
Button tool: Epiphany Crafts
Bling: Creative Memories
Baker's Twine: Scrap Pantry (Esty)
Thickers: American Crafts
Pen: Adhesives: Creative Memories

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Sew Simple

Hello scrappers! This month, I decided to experiment a bit; I wanted to try a new technique. And while you might wonder how I manage to incorporate another hobby into my scrapping projects, let me assure you that it really is "sew simple". Hehe. Do you like that? I came up with it all by myself.

Anyways, I decided to try stitching on one of my layouts for April's SFTIO Kit Club. I thought, "hey, I have 5 layouts to create, might as well try something new and fun!" So, I said it was simple... but not at first... After the third layout and re-bobbing my thread, I felt like I could do it! Would you like to know a few of my thoughts during the learning stage of this process? Let me humor you. It went something like this:

"OK, sewing machine's plugged in and turned on. Good. OK, let me grab that layout and try stitching some of those pretty butterflies on my layout... Oh, no, it's moving too fast. What's going on? Uh, somethings not right. That doesn't look right. Oh duh! You forgot to put the foot down you big dummy. OK, let's try this again. Oh this is really scary. I have a nice layout that's 75% complete and it's gonna be 100% damaged in just a matter of minutes."

"oh wait, I've got an idea! Where are those stickers? Let's cover those mistakes up and try again. Sound good? Yep."

Yes, I did talk to myself during the entire process because without my momom here to guide me... I was on my own to see if I could remember everything she told me! But I lost the bob and got that thing back on which was good considering I had 3 of the 4 sides needed stitched and I couldn't leave one alone! So, while this must sound like a lot of work and stress, after three layouts, I got used to the foot pressure of the machine and learned not to feed the paper through but let the needle do the work on it's own!

And now I present to you, my very first layout I ever stitched on!

And here are a few close ups:

And here are two other layouts with stitching:

 

When sewing for the first time do the following:
1. Take your time; don't rush!
2. Make sure you use a size 16 needle especially if you are trying to sew through several layers of paper so the needle does not break.
3. Don't forget to pull the foot down before sewing!
4. Adjust the space of your stitching to 3 to help prevent your paper from tearing.
5. Let the needle do the work, don't force your paper through... the needle will pull your paper through on it's own.
6. If you are sewing around the layout, simply lift the foot once you reach the end of your layout, turn the page, drop your foot, and continue sewing around the layout. You do NOT need to move your needle.

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Fun evening at the beach

Today, after Edward woke up from his nap, Pete and I took him to the beach. Edward met a few friends and had so much fun playing... he's gonna be a lady's man... how is it that a 2 year notices girls? He likes girls... but then, I guess that's good right? LOL.

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Today was a good day!

Today was a good day... Edward and I played all morning! He was so excited to have his mommy all to himself... and it got even better for him, Grand-dad came to pick him up to take him to lunch and the mall. He literally ran out of the house and hopped right in the car... I had the camera but didn't get a chance to take a picture! He loves him some grand-dad time.

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Spring is in the air!

Hello! Nicole here and today I would like to share with you a fun mini album I creating that celebrates 14 years of friendship! This girl has been with me through the best and worse times of my life. She never lets me down! Love you Mischelle...










Supplies:

Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Patterned Paper
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Rhinestones
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink", "French Kiss" Cardstock Stickers
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Teeny alphas
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Glitzers
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Whatnots


Other:
Baker's Twine: Scrap Pantry (Esty)
Buttons: Epiphany Crafts
Word stickers: Cosmo Cricket
Die cut machine: Cricut
Cartridge: Stamp
Pearls: Zva Creative
Flower: Zva Creative
Pen: Adhesives: Creative Memories

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Masking made easy!

Hello scrappers! I know there are a few of you who are afraid to use mist on your layouts but let me share with you how fun and easy it can be! This month, Rachel has some fun things in the SFTIO Kit! There's mist by Smooch Spritz and a 6X6 template by Crafter's Workshop and lots of other fun stuff! But my main focus today is to show you how fun and easy these two things can be together!

 he first thing I did was place the template on my cardstock. Then I cover the areas outside of the templates with scraps so that when I spray the mist, it doesn't go all over the layout.

Once the areas were covered, I sprayed the mists onto the template. Be sure to spray several coats so the color is rich.

After I sprayed the pattern on my cardstock, I carefully removed all of the scraps and then I gently picked up the template and flipped the side with the mist in a different area on my layout. I used my paper piercer to rub the template to make sure I got all the mist off the template and onto the cardstock. I then gently removed the template and let it sit a few minutes. Then I layed a book on top of the cardstock to keep the cardstock from bulking up from all the mist.

And here is my final layout! I love this... even with all the purple :) (which is a color I rarely use).

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