May Bird Abode

Have you seen Laura Denison's Bird Abodes?  She has a series of patterns (and is creating more) for bird houses which she calls "Bird Abodes".  You can see them on her website, Following the Paper Trail, and get the patterns to make your own at her store.

This is my version of her May bird house.  I followed along pretty much with her pattern, but added a few of my own touches - windows, window flower boxes and a chimney.

I used paper from a variety of collections and leftovers from other projects.  Most of the flowers are from the Tim Holtz Sizzix die, Tattered Floral Garland, although I did have a few flower punches that I used.

Sarah's Ladies Diary Album

Sarah made this gorgeous mini album for her mom as a combination birthday/Mother's Day gift.  It is based on Laura Denison's Imagination album and uses paper from Graphic 45 - A Ladies Diary.

There are lots of tags and fussy cutting.  Sarah also used some nice calligraphy to make special notes and elements throughout the album.  She made it extra special with a personal note to her mom tucked away in one of the pockets.

May Typewriter Tag

Well it's time for May's tag for the Vintage Typewriter.  In the last 10 days Spring has finally sprung here in Wisconsin - Yeah!!  So this tag has lots of blue sky and spring greens and flowers.

It's a pretty simple tag.  I started with a simple inked background - Distress Inks Stormy Sky, Salty Ocean,Mowed Lawn, Forest Moss and Peeled Paint.  I love the look of a white picket fence so I used Tim Holtz' On the Fence die and cut one out of chipboard and painted it white.

Distress Ink Storage

I have been thinking about making a storage unit for all my Distress Inks, applicators and re-inkers and here it is.  I previously had all the ink pads stored three to a drawer with their re-inkers in two  small parts storage drawer units (the kind that come from a hardware store).  They sat on my main work surface and it was ok.

Two things lit a fire under me to do something - first, it wasn't really convenient to get the ink pads out of the drawers, and secondly, whenever anyone else wanted to ink something it wasn't a very convenient setup.