Birds of a feather

Hi there! It´s Monika here, making my first ever post for Nikki Sivils. It´s a bit scary but I hope I will be able to inspire you. Well… Actually, that shouldn´t be a problem, who doesn´t get inspired just by looking at these gorgeous patterns and colors. I´m for one totally in L O V E!


I´ve used the “My Friend Birdie” collection for these summery photos. They are taken on the day after Midsummer (a Swedish holiday), and it was one of the first really warm days of summer.


I love to use my sewing machine on my layouts. Not that I like sewing so much but I love the result it gives – it makes a layout look so much more worked on.


The “My Friend Birdie” line has a round die cut paper with scalloped edges, it is so beautiful, but I just couldn’t fit it in on this layout, so instead, I used the “scallops” by cutting them two by two and make the borders for the photo.



This is a card I made for my nice, she loves purple and the “Boo-tiful” line was perfect for this. My daughter was a bit worried that she might notice that the card is made of Halloween papers, but as Halloween isn´t all that big here in Sweden, I don´t think it will be a problem.

Mixing patterns and products

I find my greatest inspiration for creating from challenges. A challenge this week at Moxie Fab is to create with a bicycle as part of the design. I love to use my own photos on cards whenever I can so this photo I had just taken of an adorable little house with a cute little bicycle sitting along the fence was the choice I knew I wanted to use.

With the colors in the photo, I could just see these papers from these two different collections matching just right. I love to use a collection of papers because they are made to go together so well, but I also love to pull together patterns from other collections that make it all work. The background paper is from the Will He B the 1 collection and the soft, green scallop circle is from the Ellie's Day Out collection. This piece is actually a larger circle but I cut just the green part out of the larger circle so it would fit on my card and so I could use this color.

My little flowers were created with punched out circles from the Date Night Strips patterned paper. I used those punched out circles as the base of my flowers with a little punched flower placed on that and a self adhesive button in the middle. These buttons are the BEST - self adhesive and cute with the little burlap look on them and the stitching already in place. How does it get any easier?

I cut out one of the little tickets for an accent and what is funny about that is that we were driving down the 101 in California when we stopped in this cute little town with Victorian houses everywhere and that is where I took this photo.

I already had this piece of Date Night Strips sitting on my desk so I cut out a portion of it to create my little birthday card.

The pink heart is part of the strip, I cut out an additional heart to layer over that and I also cut out tickets from the You're the Ticket paper.

I cut the strips apart in the piece of paper I had using scallop scissors and then I tucked the circle piece under the other so just a portion of the circles peek out.
Thanks for visiting, Linda Beeson, Design Team member

HAPPY BIRTHDAY - PARTY card
Materials list:
Cardstock – Core Essentials/Core’dinations
Patterned paper – Date Night Strips/Well He B the 1/Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker
Self adhesive buttons – Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker
Circle punch – Papershapers
Sandpaper
Self adhesive rhinestones – Queen & Co.
Foam tape – 3M
Alphabet stickers – K&Co.
Scallop scissors – Family Treasures
Machine sewing


FLOWERY BICYCLE card
Materials list:
Cardstock – Core Essentials/Core’dinations
Patterned paper – Hot Lips/Well He B the 1 and Ellie’s Day/Ellie’s Day Out/Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker
Ticket – Date Cutie Cut-Ups/Will He B the 1/Nikki Sivils Scrapboooker
Punched circles – Date Night Strips/Will He B the 1/Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker
Self adhesive buttons – Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker
Circle punch – Papershapers
Sandpaper
Self adhesive pearl flourish – Zva Designs
Foam tape – 3M
Alphabet stickers – K&Co.
Corner Rounder punch - Fiskars
Ribbon