A Collage Album....

I realized today that I completely forgot to share a fun album I created last month for, www.ideasforscrapbookers.blogspot.com   I gathered random pieces...such as my Christmas card, a pretty checkered gift sack from a boutique. I cut raw sheets of chipboard in to pages of various sizes and covered them with a mix of holiday papers...punched holes for binding rings and added all the photos, embellishments and journaling. Simple and effective!  It was a wonderful way to make a fun album about our Christmas at Brasada.

 

  

  

 

  

  

  

  

And, lastly....a layout I did a while back playing with some new Elle's Studio . I layered several of her journaling cards around my photo. I just love the aqua and brown deer card and that super cute picture of Duffy and his little black olive (aka. nose..hehe)

 

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend! Check back on Monday to see what our Creative Team Member,  Leslie Ashe has created for us to be inspired by!!

Monday Creative Team Feature: Amy Priddy!

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Welcome our Creative Team member, Amy Priddy of Priddy Creations! Amy specializes in custom camera accessory totes and camera straps. I know you are going to love what she has created for us today! But before we get to the eye candy, let's get to know Amy!

I am the proud mama to three kids (ranging from 6 years old to 10 years old) and have been married to my best friend for the past 16 years.  We live in Southeast Texas with our two dogs and two cats.  I am extremely blessed to be able to work from home doing something that I love!!  Before that, I worked in the legal field for 10 years.  I am what my hubby calls a "Jack of all trades" but I truly love designing and sewing.  I have dabbled in scapbooking, jewelry making, photography and digital graphics.  However, my true love is one with fabric and all things that can be made with it!  My business, Priddy Creations, consists mostly of camera accessories, bags and other small accessories.  Occasionally you will see a few baby items.  You can find me on Etsy (http://www.priddycreations.etys.com) and through my website (http://www.priddycreations.com).  I really enjoyed designing around Tessa Ann's gorgeous buttons and am looking forward to doing it again.  I hope that my designs, along with Tessa Ann's creative buttons, have inspired all of you!

I was delighted when Amy requested to work with my "Oh, Snap!"  camera-inspired buttons! This button set was perfect for embellishing the camera accessories she is sharing with us here today.  Enjoy and most of all...be inspired! 

  Amy created a CF/Business card wallet. This wallet is perfect to safely store your extra CF cards, as well as a stylish accessory to carry your business cards in. I love how she adorned the front of the wallet with the solid black button and the silver/black star button. It compliments the polka dot and damask beautifully!
Amy will have this little gem available for purchase today in her Etsy shop! 

  

  

Amy created a beautiful comfy camera strap. I love the damask print she chose! This too will be up on her website for sale today! I am sure it won't last long :) 

 

The pleated detail makes this strap cover super stylish! 

 

Thank you, Amy for sharing your beautiful creations with all of us!

Last week's giveaway winner is:

Phamil

Congrats, Patti! 
Please Email me @ shoptessaann@yahoo.com with your address and I'll ship your buttons out!

Have a great week everyone!  
XOXO Tessa Ann* 

Monday Creative Team Feature: *Rachel Mason*

Welcome to The Button Shop's 1st Creative Team member showcase! This Monday we have our Creative Team Member Rachel. Take a moment and get to know Rachel and be inspired by her fun scrapbooking style! With this post we are also giving away the set of buttons Rachel chose to work with to one lucky reader!

Hi! My name is Rachel and I am so thrilled to be a part of this creative team. I have been married to my best friend for almost 8 years and am mom (and cleaning lady) to four needy pets. By day, I am a veterinary technician at a large clinic in Kansas City. By night (and on the weekends), I am crafter extraordinaire...or at least try to be! I love to sew, paint, knit, and am learning to crochet. but my true love is scrapbooking and photography. I say both are a cheaper form of therapy. When I scrapbook I prefer to use odds & ends, bits & bobs, and whatever scraps I have laying around to create emotion and transfer my feelings to paper. Through the lens, I attempt to capture those imperfect moments of life that make people truly human. In my spare time, I play in my Etsy shop that I have filled with vintage goodies! I hope you enjoy what I have made with Tessa Ann's fabulous buttons!

Rachel chose the "Rainbow Bright" Button set for her projects this month! This set of buttons was a perfect choice for embellishing her childhood photos. I love how Rachel used the bakers twin from our packaging to tie to the centers of each button. Be sure to read her journaling. It's just too cute to miss! Simply leave a comment below to WIN your own set of these buttons!  (winner will be announced next Sunday 2/7/09)

 

  

Job well done, Rachel!  Thank you for inspiring all of us!

Custom orders....

Custom orders. Each one presents a new challenge and with each one I learn something new and my skills expand on so many levels. I love seeing what the final result is when the customer shares their project with me. I am always so proud to see my little handmade button shining brightly on a handmade sweater or scrapbooking page.

Terra, of Terra Dawn Photography contacted me this month to create custom buttons that matched her adorable owl logo with hearts surrounding the owl. I was pretty excited how they turned out and even more thrilled when she showed me this photo!  Teal and Red. *drooling* Yep. My favorite colors. She is using these for charms on the gifts she gives to her clients. LOVE it. If you need some good eye candy, visit her blog. I spent a good hour there pouring over her amazingly photography, particularly the wedding photos. My sister just got engaged and I just had to share it with her. So many wonderful, beautiful, creative ideas. www.terradawnblog.com

The schedule has been full of custom orders since the beginning of the year. This year we now are able to take on large orders for scrapbooking kit clubs. Our buttons are wonderful for the kit clubs simply because I can custom create any design to compliment the theme for the month. We were just included in the January Kit for Timeless Daydreams and have some upcoming kits that will be featuring our buttons as well. I ♥ that :)
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My lovely and talented friend, Kristina (actually the one who made my new blog so cute) requested a custom order of happy, colorful cupcake buttons. This is what I created for her. I have made a variation of this set available in the shop.


I have a lot of customers that order custom buttons to match the paper lines they are working with for their scrapbooking albums. This is always a fun challenge and fun to try and get the colors just right. This custom order was to compliment the papers from Basic Grey Origin's line.  Again, I have a smaller set variation in the shop available.

Many more custom orders up on the list to finish and to create.

Join us Monday for our 1st Creative Team spotlight. Our 1st spotlight will be Rachel!  There might even be a button giveaway! Stop back on Monday and say hi!

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend. It has been a cold and wet one here.  Steve and I went out last night with my family and had dinner at a super cute diner called, Lolas and then to Seven for drinks and karaoke (no, I do not get up and sing..lol..even though I'm a singer, it kills me to sing karaoke, I am tooooo serious about my music.haha. My parents LOVE it and its's cute to watch them..). Well, thinking about a nice nap or getting my workout in. The nap sounds better right now.. :) 

See you Monday!
Tessa Ann*

Announcing The 2010 Button Shop Creative Team!!!

We had an amazing turn out for our Creative Team call!   Each day my inbox was filled to the brim with applications. We enjoyed pouring through each and everyone of them.

With  50+ WONDERFUL submissions to go through our job was not easy. It was down-right HARD. You are all SO amazingly creative and talented. I would have loved to have worked with all of you!

After much thought and consideration, we feel we have chosen a great group of crafters to represent our 1st Creative Team. 

We are proud to announce our 1st Button Shop Creative Team! Please help us welcome..

Rachel Mason

Amy Priddy

Bridget Baxter

Leslie Ashe

Beginning the 1st Monday of February and every Monday thereafter, one of our Creative Team members will be showcased along with their Button Shop creation. Prepare to be inspired!!

Congratulations ladies!!  We are delighted to have you be a part of The Button Shop!  Again, thank you all for sharing your creativity with us. We are going to keep your submissions on file for future Features!

Button Shop Update

It has been a busy week already in the button shop! I have enjoyed working on many fun new designs for Spring and Valentines Day.  I have been receiving MANY applications for the Creative Team and oh, boy....this is going to be a very difficult decision. There are SO many talented, creative applicants to choose from. You all are not making my job very easy ;-) hehe!  Thank you for submitting. I have really enjoyed pouring over each entrants application.

Aside from working in The Button Shop, I have been experimenting in the kitchen a bit more. I made cupcakes for Steve's co-workers and a great salmon dinner last week. When it's cold out like it has been, it is nice to just stay in the cozy warm house :-) Santa brought me an Ipod Touch, so we have both enjoyed playing games on it in the evenings. I totally love this toy, I can answer emails when we are out and keep my shop stocked and re-filled at all times. And...twitter and facebook right at my hand ;-) 

The new designs, as well as a custom order that I ♥! 

I was asked to create a set of buttons inspired by Cosmo Cricket's "The Boyfriend" collection. She wanted to have coordinating buttons to match the papers she was using. This set here was inspired by the set I have below (somewhere down there). I am sure I will create more based on that custom order.

This set is called, "Sweetie Tweetie"  another fun "Valentines Day" themed set of buttons.

This set was inspired and named after my mom :-)  She LOVES purple and whimsy, so this had to be named perfectly, "Rosena Louise"  She was very flattered ;-)

A pretty set of music themed buttons, "Melody" :-)

Alas, that custom order I absolutely LOVED creating!

Have a great night!

Creative Team Search for The Button Shop!

Would you like free buttons to create with each month, and in return share your creations? 

The Button Shop is looking for a Creative Team of 4 crafters who are well-rounded in many varieties of crafts. Do you sew, knit, quilt or scrapbook? If you do, this would be fun for you! If you do all 4 crafts that's bonus!Each month Creative Team members will select their new favorite set of buttons from the shop!  This will allow my Creative Team to have total creative freedom with their projects each month.  Each week one Creative Team member will be spotlighted here with their project and a small Q&A.  In addition, I do ask that each Creative Team member post about their projects on their blog and any other social networking forums they are involved with. Occasionally, I will ask you to create a project tutorial to be shared here.

 Your term as a Creative Team member will simply be a  fun low pressure gig that allows you to play with some really fun buttons :)

Each Creative Team Member will design for the next 6 months. (Feb-July)  

To apply: Simply email me at shoptessaann@yahoo.com with the following information:

    ♥  What makes my buttons a good match for your projects?

    ♥  Please share your blog/website and Etsy/or other shop you may have.

    ♥ Please share 2-3 projects of your choice that showcase your best work.

The Creative Team call will end January 25, 2010. Creative Team Announcement will post here live 12:00 PST,January 29, 2010 

A bittersweet Christmas

We had such a lovely time at the cabin again this year for Christmas.We enjoyed playing games, cooking and visiting. We even went down to the pool and sat outside in the hot tub in below freezing weather. Christmas was everything it should be together as a family.

It has been hard to even write this post, as going on about all of our happy times over our Christmas holiday seem so bittersweet after the news we received December 26th.

We all arrived home with the most devastating, heart breaking news. My grandma Wheeler, my mom's mom was in a car with 5 of my family members when they were struck head on by a truck who had hit ice. We lost my grandma that day and it's been really hard to grasp. I am grateful my other family members, though injured will recover and be okay. I am thankful no other lives were lost in this tragedy.

I have so many wonderful memories of her and I'll cherish them forever. She taught me how to sew, how to knit and crochet. She was patient with me as a child and would read to my sister and I, allowing my sister to "pretend" read the books by making up stories based on the photos :)   She would play in the river with us and take us roller skating. I remember how she would let me steer the car on country roads when I was getting ready to learn to drive. I loved watching movies with her and trying to guess the plot with her. I remember how much she loved Christmas candy (the hard candy in pretty swirls) and how her spot was on the love seat next to the fireplace...where her coffee, glasses and cigarettes would rest near by. I remember her smell and how she would record my height on the wall in the hallway each visit. I loved her. I miss her.   So, sorry about not posting a new update about Christmas. I just didn't know what to say.

I'll leave this post with photos of our time at the cabin. It truly was a memorable Christmas, despite the sadness at the end.

I hope everyone had a beautiful holiday. Wishing you ALL a safe and happy New Year.
Love,
Tessa Ann*