October...A new month...and a new monthly challenge!

Hi everyone!!

 I am hosting the October Challenge for Berry71bleu.

If you're one of the lucky ones that get to live where you can see the Fall Foliage, then I envy you.

I live in Houston where it is still in the low 90's and humid. The weather will start to cool off around Halloween.

But if you live in the Southern hemisphere...I am sure you are enjoying the beauty of Spring in all its glory?

It is October...my birthday month and I would love to see what you will create for us this month...

Fall colors is our theme this month.

Use the colors that you see in the mood board.

Here is what I made:

I started with a 6x6 Gelli Art Plate and Speedball Block printing paints.

I mix the colors with a brayer, going back and forth to cover the whole plate.

I played around with it, until I get the effect I want. I will print this on a white cotton Fabric.

The color was pretty strong for me so I lightened it up a bit with liquid acrylic, just a drop or 2. 

I used stencils for my design or if you have punchinellas, they're a lot cheaper and you can re-use.

I made an album by using white muslin fabric. Stitched to make the pages.

I will show you what the pages look like below.

             

Here are my decorated pages:

Here are the prizes for this month..

First Prize:

Random Prizes:

 6x6 Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate

You will get 2 tubes of Green and Blue Speedball paint.

Main Sponsors:  

Speedball Art Products Company
facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SpeedballArt

 Product Catalog

A Tradition of Excellence: For more than 100 years, high quality art products from Speedball have created Unlimited Possibilities for Artists in both classrooms and professional studios around the world. Speedball is committed to artistic innovation and expression.

Printmaking Is A Time-Tested Craft That Is Ideal For Contemporary Art Expression: Today with the advent of new techniques and materials, Printmaking has gained renewed interest and unprecedented support. Printmaking begins with Speedball - America’s leading manufacturer of printmaking materials - unequaled for quality, safety and ease-of-use.

Economical and Time-Flexible: The Beauty of Printmaking is in its flexibility and economy. Projects can range from simple printmaking exercises lasting only for a short session to more complex projects that can be expanded to include advance detailed techniques. Printmaking is more popular than ever and Speedball Art Products is the artist’s choice!

Speedball Block Printing Inks: Give your creations all the brilliance they deserve with inks from Speedball. Speedball’s Water Soluble Block Printing Inks come in 18 brilliant colors available in 37cc, 75cc, 150cc tubes plus 8oz. and 16oz jars. These inks are easy to clean up with water, non-toxic, gluten free and super for printmaking with linoleum, wood, Flexible Printing Plate, Speedy-Carve™, Speedy-Cut™ and Polyprint. All Speedball inks are AP Non-Toxic and are excellent for use in the studio, school or home. Speedball also carries Oil-Based Block Printing Inks available in 10 brilliant colors in 37cc tubes or 7 colors available in 75cc tubes. Suitable for printing on papers and fabrics, they are non-darkening, waterproof and permanent.

A special thanks to Speedball Art Products and  Gelli Arts for supplying the Design Team with Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plates and Speedball Block Printing Paints.

We love gelatin printing and we've developed a better way to do it!

Our Gel Printing Plate looks and feels like gelatin, but is durable, reusable and stores at room temperature. It's easy to clean and always ready for printing. Monoprinting on a Gelli plate is simple and fun. The gratification is immediate, and the prints are too cool!

Please note that if the winner(s) of this challenge are international they will be responsible for shipping costs.
Make sure you follow our CHALLENGE RULES..

Thank you and we hope to see your beautiful creations this month!

A couple of things I want to share....

Hi everyone! Just want to share a couple of things with you..

First...I'm doing a DT call for Berry71bleu. If you're interested, pls. follow the link below.

Next....my flower tutorial was featured at Snapguide, the flower is so easy to make...I made this flower on my last post here..see below...

Last but not least..Thanks to my friend Agnieszka for her help with our sponsorship from 

Inkido and for featuring my work on Inkido's blog!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Berry71bleu Challenge Blog is looking for enthusiastic, energetic, self-sufficient, friendly, and trust-worthy new DT members. We are a drama-free team, we take pride in what we do and we all work well together.

We’re looking for altered, mixed media artists, card makers, and scrap bookers and versatile crafters that would like to play with products from our generous sponsors and one-of-a-kind tags from the owner.

As a DT member you will be required to do 1 monthly project. This term will start in January 2014 and will end in June 2014. You will be assigned certain days of the month in which you will post your completed projects on our blog. During your term, you are required to do 1 tutorial and host a challenge.

You are also required to comment on assigned entries.

You must have a blog; Facebook for communication and you must have good photography skills. You will also help us promote Berry71bleu challenges and our sponsors in social media platforms and scrapbook galleries wherever it is allowed.

As compensation, you will receive free products from sponsors and handmade tags. And as DT member you will get 30% off any products from Zeus and Zoe Etsy Shop. And you will have the opportunity to work with amazing designers.

To be considered for this team. Send us at least 4 of your best projects, DT commitments past and present. Tell me something about yourself and why you would want to be considered for our design team. This call is open to any one, international applicants are encouraged to apply.

As part of this design team, members are required to pay for your own shipping cost.

Email berry71bleu@att.net with all the information requested with the subject  “BERRY71BLEU DT CALL”. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email us.

Applications must be received by 10/20/13.  This is a 6-month term that will start on January 2014. This is open to US and international applicants and we encourage everyone to apply.

Have a look around the blog (http://berry71bleu.blogspot.com)

and check out our DT and GDT projects to give you an idea on what you will be working with.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you!

For Inkido's projects:

Something easy and very tasty to make....Chocolatey too!!

I want to share with you a recipe that is oh so simple and easy to make. It is also good for you and will satisfy your chocolate craving. I saw this recipe at cooking channel so I thought I'd give it a go.

First you need to get your favorite trail mix. I love the combination of fruity, salty, and sweet. You can get this at your local grocery store or health store.

This has mixture of nuts (peanuts and almonds), dried cranberries, raisins, yogurt covered nuts...so you can go crazy with this mix.

I used a parchment paper to cover my cookie sheet for easy clean up.

Get your favorite brand of chocolate chips..Mine is Guittard!

I melted mine in the microwave. Make sure you follow the directions on the back of the bag. I melted on the microwave on 50% power. 30 seconds increments until you get the right consistency.

Pour melted chocolate to your trail mix.

Now if you have a kid that loves chocolate, they can help you clean clean up the bowl.

Use a spatula to spread the chocolate. If you want you can still add white chocolate chips or mini marshmallows to the mix..

Let it cool off until it gets hard. I waited an hour.

Break in to pieces.

I hope you try this recipe..Perfect snack for fall and healthy too..

See you soon! 

Happy to be Me.....

Hi Everyone! Can you believe it? it is almost September! Where did the time go?

I hope you had a great summer....I don't do a lot of scrapbook LO/pages anymore. I think I just needed to back away from it. I like all sorts of craft but I just don't want to do paper crafting...I want to try all sorts of things and just try different mediums. 

I love flowers...I love the real flowers, the artificial ones that we use for crafting or decor and the ones that are handmade. I had been trying different sorts of flowers to make, from fabric to papers. I love making my own flowers. There are so many great items that one can upcycle..maybe an old floral pillow case, or you daughter's old dress...you just have to be creative with it. 

Today, I will show you how I made fabric flowers using our sponsor's products for BERRY71BLEU. Faber-Castell makes this amazing gelatos and gel sticks. This is how I made my fabric flowers. I actually just learned to use my sewing machine...thank God for my husband..His mom got me a sewing machine a couple of years ago and it has been sitting in the closet since then. So my husband figured it out for me....how to start with threading the bobbin, etc and he showed me how it works. Mind you, he doesn't know how to sew but he is good with tinkering...He's heaven sent! I don't read directions/manual anymore, I just have him open the box and he teaches me how to use it. He know how to use the cameo silhouette better that I could...So sad on my part, as long as he is here to figure it out for me then I am in good hands...that's why I love my husband so so much (just in case he decides to read this post)..Well, I do! And I am lucky to have him as a husband...

Enough already...before I start getting mushy here....

Here is what I made....

First cut a 4 inch template or use any size you would like.

If you want a perfect circle, you can google a circle template, print it and cut away.

For this flower, I cut 16 circles using a white cotton fabric (old white shirt will do)

I used orange Faber-Castell gel sticks and yellow gelato.

I applied color to the fabric and brushed it with water, I used a lot of water to achieve the color I want.

from lighter to dark.

I just wiped the excess water with the fabric which gave the 2-tone effect.

Let it dry..

Cut the fabric in half

fold it in half and stitch away. You can hand-stitch too if you want.

Once you are done, separate each petal and turn it inside out so the stitching is inside.

I used ten petals for the bottom part of my flower. I alternated the colors between yellow and orange to lighter peach. 

Hand stitch the top part of the petal using running stitch and slowly pull the thread to make a pleated petal. Make sure you have a matching thread and that your thread is long enough to stitch the petals.

Once you are done stitch it close. 

You don't have to use 10 petals, you can use less or whatever you think will look good. I used 6 petals for the top part of  the flower.

I stitched the top to the bottom part. Cut a small felt circle to cover the bottom part. Depending on what you want to use it for, this is the time to add a pin or a clip if you want to use as brooch or hair clip. 

You can add a button, pearls, jewel, or brad for the center.

My usual model (my daughter was at school when I made this). So

I had to find a replacement model...

This is Luci Loo...I think she did a great job modeling..

What do you think?

I made this page using the same flower technique but with different colors of Faber-Castell gelatos.

I also used the gelato to alter my background page. I thinned the gelato by using Faber-Castell gesso. 

I stamped the page randomly using Glitz roller stamp and Susan Carrilo butterfly stamp.

I followed Norma's Challenge for August. Getting creative with Textile...I used the same effect for the trim using the flower technique. I machine stitched to add pleats. I found a pink crochet yarn which was randomly added.

The paper roses were handmade as well. Unfortunately I can't give you the tutorial for that one. It is my friend's rose template as respect for him, I will honor his request not to share the template publicly. 

I also used Scrapiniec Chipboard on the background. And for papers, I used Inkido collection. 

I also used Glitz whatnot's and Kaisercraft die cuts.

I'd like to thank our sponsors this month and to all of you that continue to join our challenges.

Thank you for your support...

Our Sponsors:

Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft

Blog:  http://designmemorycraft.typepad.com/design-memory-craft/

Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft is a leading manufacturer specializing in high quality art supplies including pens, color pencils and watercolor pencils for art, crafts, scrapbooking and papercrafting.

Working with the MIX & MATCH products from Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft makes designing with COLOR simple. Simply choose a color set that inspires you, choose a medium and Mix & Match as you create. The color coordinated palettes give you the freedom to design your project knowing the colors will work beautifully together. Perfect for all your design, memory and craft projects!

Sign up for the Faber-Castell Newsletter to be the first to know about new products, giveaways and events!

 A special thanks to Scrapiniec Die-Cut Chipboard for sponsoring the Berry71Bleu Design Team, who will be sharing projects with their chipboard for the next several months.

 

Scrapiniec is the first Polish manufacturer of laser die-cut chipboard products for use in scrapbooking. They satisfy even the most unusual individual orders and are characterized by reliability, high quality and friendly customer service.

 

Papercraft Scandinavia designs high quality stamps, patterned paper, lace, flowers and much more in a romantic vintage style for scrapbooking, cardmaking and other crafts.

http://www.papercraftscandinavia.com/

http://www.inkido.blogspot.com/