Echo Park and The Twinery blog hop!

Welcome! If you arrived here from IVONA's blog, you are in the right place! If not, make sure you start at The Twinery blog.

Most of my blog readers know how much I love, love using twine on my projects, and The Twinery is the BEST place to purchase colored twine in my opinion. :) The colors are so awesome! Today Echo Park and the Twinery have asked me to participate in a fun little blog hop to showcase some of their new goodies!

First off, a little layout that I made for a special friend of mine, Shonna. She lives in my hometown in South Dakota and we don't get to see each other often, but we keep in touch with email, phone calls and Facebook time! I want her to know how much her friendship means to me! We met... oh, I would say somewhere around 1994...? Gosh, that means we've been friends for about 17 years. Wow, wow, wow. Time sure flies. That's me (right) and Shonna (left) this summer when I went home for a visit.

Here I used Echo Park's new Country Drive line of papers, journaling cards and stickers. The teal twine is called Caribbean from the Twinery. The stamped flowers and remember sentiment are new by Papertrey Ink and are called Harvest Berries, and I cut them out with a Harvest Berries die as well. The "thinking of you" is from a new stamp set by PTI called Think Big Favorites #7.

I love creating my own backgrounds with stamps. Using a similar color of ink makes the background interesting and supportive to the theme of the page, but doesn't take attention away from the photo.

After stamping, I wrapped the cardstock twice with twine and tied it in a knot at the end. I used one more piece and tied it into a bow over the top of one of the knots. Kind of reminds me of a nice warm HUG, the way the twine wraps around the page.

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My second project is a fun little baby card. Twine is perfect for hanging things like banners and tags!

Here I've used a paper from the Country Drive line again (floral), along with a paper from the Dots & Stripes: Candy Shoppe (pink background). The twine is black and is called Charcoal.

I've used some new tag stamps by Papertrey Ink called Fillable Frames Additions 2 and stamped them right over the patterned paper with Pure Poppy ink (red), then cut them out and punched holes for hanging. The background is white cardstock that I added some Vintage Cream paint to, just swiped the ink pad right across it, then embossed it with a polkadot embossing folder and my Cuttlebug.

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On the next card, I made my own little faux crocheted flowers. I know I've shown this technique before on my blog, but instead of yarn this time, I used twine!

Here is a close up of the twine flowers....

I've put together a how-to for these Faux Crocheted Flowers:

Step 1.  Cut 3 lengths of twine 15" or so. (This will create a flower that is about 1 1/4" wide.) Tie them together in a knot at the end.

Step 2.  Braid all the way to the end and tie another knot. Punch a 2" circle of cardstock.

Step 3.  Add adhesive to the cardstock circle. Start in center and adhere twine braid.

Step 4.  Begin rolling the braid around the center.

Step 5.  Continue until you get to the end. Trim excess cardstock off with scissors.

Step 6.  Tuck end underneath the circle and tape the end on the back.

On this card, I used Echo Park's Dots & Stripes again (blue polkadot) and the Dots & Stripes stickers that come with the collection! Stamp set is the Love Lives Here set by Papertrey Ink. Twine is Maraschino and Blossom.

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I will be giving away the Country Drive and the Dots & Stripes-Metropolitan collections! Deadline for commenting will be 11:59 EST Friday, August 19th. Prizes will be announced August 20th on each blog. Echo Park is giving away 3 collections and The Twinery is giving away the Ultimate Color Sampler Pack!

Next on the hop, please visit HERA's blog!