Here is your official invitation to join our latest swap!

You can sign up at Beth’s blog, Gathering Dust, and she will send you the file full of images provided by the Vintage Workshop to use for your creations.

Please feel free to add this button to your blog, and upload photos to this flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/702816@N20/

The images provided by Vintage Workshop are pretty as a, well,  a picture!

You can embellish, redo, add to, paint, ink, stamp, cut, crop, glue, foof, what ever you want to do to the panels you make.

It will be so cool to see what each artist does by adding their own touch to the theme.  Check out Beth’s examples on her site too.

You will be decorating 4 panels, each side.  Here is the flip side of mine.

Some of the tricks I used on mine were printing the images in multiple sizes and printing them on different textures of paper.

Crackle glaze, diamond glaze and crystals made good accents too. 

I also added some hand painted details like the gilded bird cage and the tree branches the birds sit on.

This is two of Vintage Workshop’s back ground wallpapers that I painted branches onto, then cut out and glued a bird on. 

The bird is wearing a bonnet I printed on fabric paper and cut out and she has a black crystal eye.    The hand painted branches are accented with flowers I pulled off of an old hat in my stash.

Here is a mistake I made- DON"T glue anything too near the edge where the hole punch needs to go for the connecting ring!!

By putting this cool, old button in that spot, I ruined this panel and it doesn’t quite fit right.  I’ll have to make another one.

We’ll let you know the measurements of where the punches will go so you don’t make the same mistake I did.

Did I mention the PRIZES?  We will have a drawing and pick winners from all the participants.

Beth and I each made a clutch from these cute purses that Vintage Workshop sells.

Amy, the owner, gave us a bagful of fun things to make up, and I will be making   a couple more presents too.

Plus– Vintage Workshop is providing SIX gift certificates!

This purse is embellished with a vintage pink rose and bow of velvet from an antique bonnet as well as crystals and images from Vintage Workshop that I printed onto their fabric paper. 

I am including the pretty hanky and the string of pearls since they look like they are all meant to be together.

Beth is including pearls with her purse too.

Ready for the official rules and guild lines?  I hope you sign up! Here is the info you will need:

Karla & Beth’s Birds & Bonnets

Vintage Workshop Swap

To introduce its beautiful and versatile new printable wallpaper collection, The Vintage Workshop (Thevintageworkshop.com) is teaming up with Karla and Beth to host a swap. 

Decorate both sides of four 4” x 5 1/2” panels using at least one image or background from The Vintage Workshop collections on each panel. After you sign up for the swap, we’ll send you a link and log on to a website where you can download, resize, digitally collage and print the images you’d like to use.   You can make your panels all the same or each one different.

You can use more than one image per panel, and you can use other collage materials, too.  In other words, feel free to use your own accents, buttons, and trims to compliment the images we’ll send you.  All digital collage is great, too.  Or you can work digitally and embellish copies.  Just about anything goes, as long as you use at least one of the Vintage Workshop images or backgrounds we send you.

Send the panels back to us, and we’ll assemble the panels into unique decorative screens using ring binders.

We’ll be photographing the finished screens for The Vintage Workshop, so please be aware that by participating in the swap, you are agreeing to let The Vintage Workshop use your panels on its website or in future publications.

The Details

The Images- The images for the swap will be sent to you via an emailed file.  You will need to size and print the images you select to use to use make your panels. 

The Panels- 4” x 5 ½”, made of something in weight similar to chipboard or book board.  The cardboard back of a tablet works great for this.  Whatever you use, it has to be substantial enough that it can stand up as part of a screen, but thin enough to be hole punched.

Sign Up Date- Sign up by emailing Beth, using the email link on the upper left side of her blog.  The deadline is April 18. 

On Apr 20, we’ll send a confirmation email with the jpeg image file with to all participants. 

Receive by Date – We’ll need to RECEIVE your panels by May 19. 

Cost- The cost for a padded envelope, mailing and materials is $5.  The $5 needs to be included with your panels.

What You’ll Get– A unique four panel screens, with each panel made by a different player.   We’ll mail the screens by Jun 1.

Remember, there is not a limit to this one, so there is room for everyone.  So far we have 8 prizes, but if we get a lot of people we will add more gifts to the drawing. You know I LOVE to give presents!  Every comment you leave is entered into my monthly giveaway.

Beth and I had a fun day Thursday, one of our stops was Curious Sofa.  Deb Dousenberry has such wonderful taste, her shop is an experience.

So many simple ideas, and simple everyday objects are made special just by the way Deb puts them together and displays them.

We also went to see Amy of Vintage Workshop, then treated ourselves to bakery goods from Andres to sort out ideas about our next swap.

Vintage Workshop is providing the images for our swap! Here are a few of them.

I like to download the pictures, then print them in multiple sizes.

Especially the wallpaper backgrounds.  I print those in at least 3 sizes. Having the same image in different forms is really fun to play around with.

Sugarwings stayed all night again last night and I am afraid I didn’t get finished with everything I wanted to show you for the swap we are doing, but here is a sneak peak.

I made these four "panels" from the Vintage Workshop downloads and then doo-dadded them up.

I haven’t decorated the backs yet, that needs to be done so they can fit together like a screen.

This screen is one that Beth has made (hers is finished, unlike mine!) 

Here are some of the details of the swap:

Everyone will make 4 of these panels using at least one image from Vintage workshop.

You can decorate it up as elaborately or simply as you’d like.

By everyone using the same 3 Vintage Workshop collections, we’ll have a cohesive look, so that all the panels will look lovely together.

But by having so many artists do the work, then putting 4 different person’s work into one screen, they will be eclectic and fun.

By using the various sizes of  the pictures  and printing some of it on textured paper (the lovely lady is printed onto fabric paper that Amy sells. She gave me some to try and I have to say I am hooked on it now!) you can get lots of different looks from the same imgages, so the choices are limitless!

Mine are done with using some added millinery flowers, crystals, pages from an old book, then crackle or paper glazes for texture.  On this one, I outlined the details in a shimmering ink (shows up better in person) and then used paper glaze over the central design, rubbed the edges with a walnut ink pad and glued down crystals to the pattern of the paper. 

This one wasn’t much more complicated, I layered the different papers I had printed out from the wallpaper background collection, then added a page from an old French book, inked the edges, glued them down, and cut a bird out of one of the collections. 

She is nesting in the scraps from cutting out the French book page, and is accented with crystals and a couple old buttons.

I’ll get more examples made up, and also some panels made so I can swap too!

What I am trying to show you with these, is that you can do a lot of different styles with these 3 collections Vintage Workshop is providing for us (We get to play with her fun papers for FREE! YAY, Amy!)

Amy is also supplying us with PRIZES!  We’ll have a drawing from all of the entrants in the swap and 6 will get gift certificates to download more images to create with.

Vintage Workshop sells these purses to embellish, and I got a few to foof up with the printable fabric, sticky back paper.

One, I will give as a drawing prize for the swappers, and the other will be  a drawing prize for all the kind people who are making a card for my Aunt Caroline’s 100th birthday.

These clutches are so fun to make, I made up the 2 of them, with the fronts and backs different.

I lined the bottom with a wide velvet ribbon in the best shade of faded pink on both of them, and added some old rhinestone buttons, millinery flowers and crystals.

Beth will make a prize too. And knowing me, I will make more. I like to give presents!

Exact details of the swap will be added later. Beth has it all written up and ready to go, and sign ups will be on her blog.

So, I hope we get a lot of sign ups! This will be a pretty swap, who doesn’t love Birds and Bonnets?

And I want to thank all of you who have offered to make a card for my great Aunt Caroline’s 100th birthday. 

I have 68 so far, am almost to 100, so could use a few more people to surprise her with 100 cards.

I will be showing the cards on my blog as they come in, so we can all enjoy them, and will draw a name from the 100 people who help me out and send one a Vintage Workshop clutch.

Here is the flickr site if you want to post a photo of a card you have made:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/679216@N25/