We Have a Lot to Announce!

First of all, we want to let you know that we are behind the scenes preparing for our upcoming Blog Hop.  Please be sure to mark your calendars for April 26-28.  As always, there will be lots inspiration and prizes along the way!

Our second item of business is to announce the winner of our April Bits & Pieces Giveaway.  A big thanks to all of you who entered and helped spread the word by sharing it on your blogs.  The winner is entry #114, which belongs to Sonja.  Congratulations!  Sonja, please send an e-mail to: Leslie[at]Cestmagnifiquekits.com and give her your mailing address.

Lastly, we are just about ready to say goodbye to our April kit, but before we do that, we want to thank the awesome Michelle Frisby for being our Guest Designer for April.  She has been getting our kits for quite some time, so she was totally in her comfort zone working with the Design Team.   We loved having you Michelle! 

Most of the time we feature scrapbook layouts on our blog, but Michelle has created some other amazing projects using our April kit. 

"Easel Card" by Michelle Frisby

It's no secret that I love making easel cards. I've made a card with a cardstock base which I've then covered using the gorgeous Pion Designs papers. I've layered, and layered and layered some more. I've used a lace doily edge punch on a strip of paper to make the bodice peeking out on the Blue Fern Studios mini dress form - how cute is that, and then I've popped a flower on the top to form the dress shall we say.

I didn't want this card covered in flowers [just for a change] and got my thinking cap on, on how I would have it held up ... so I've grabbed my hot glue gun, used one of the vintage wood mini rulers, glued it down along with a selection of buttons which I've dribbled dimensional magic on to and then sprinkled with seed beads. I've also made a dummy cotton spool by cutting a strip of paper, rolling it and putting an occasional dab of glue to hold it together, then I've glued two buttons, one either end, wound some twine around the spool itself and added a few seed beads to this as well.

"A Little Treasure Box" by Michelle Frisby

 A little something to tuck away a wee treasure to send to a friend to put a smile on their face.

This is a little 2 inch box, so definitely not very big. I've used the Pion Designs Purple Room paper, cut two inch squares, don't forget one for the bottom of box. I've run my sandpaper stick around the paper edges to slightly soften the edges and then very roughly inked the edges before adhering to my wee box.

Hot glue to the ready and then I've layered muslin, scrunched up Tim Holtz tissue paper and embellished with leaves and Prima flowers, seed beads and you might see a wee string of pearls tucked in there as well which I have looped over the Prima chipboard key. I have also cut off two stems from the Prima Lifetime Flower Stems and twisted the stem around my paper piercer to curl it and I've tucked two wee pieces under my roses.

Wasn't quite sure how I was going to achieve the box closure, but I worked around that by stamping the Prima Washi Tape wood stamp onto an off-cut of the paper, folded it in half and glued the top half to the top of the box under all the layering and voila.

"Birthday Tag" by Michelle Frisby

Whilst clearing away, I thought to myself I will make a quick birthday tag with bits and pieces from the kit that were left sitting in my craft space. I have to say it really was quick, I just kept adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

I had already covered and sanded one of the mini dress forms with Tim Holtz tissue paper and painted over it with the Lindy's Stamp Gang mist ... I had discarded it from another creation, but thought that I would make use of it on my birthday tag.

Tag has now been popped into an envelope and will be winging its way to one of my scrapping friends.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.  We will be back in a couple of days to show you the paper we'll be using in our May kit, as well as the add-ons.  See you then!