Finding a Happy Place with Dear Lizzy!

Hey Magpies, Rachel here and it’s welcome to July from me! Hope this means the start of summer here in the UK. June was a bit of a washout here in the west of England, I have my fingers crossed that June will be fabulous and sunny. I decided to use the Dear Lizzy, Happy Place collection this month. I’ll be honest, when I saw this collection I wasn’t blown away. It looked a bit pastel for me, I tend to like bright colours. But I loved the Watercolour Die Cut Words, the Leather Tassles and those lush Pink Puffy Thickers. I didn’t use any of those products on these LO’s though! But after using those Pink Puffy Thickers on my blog post last month, I took another look at the collection to use for this months blog. I definitely found some gems and I think these LO’s pack the colour punch!
The pink spotted reverse side of the Dear Lizzy, Say Cheese paper, it’s definitely my favourite. I used it a couple of times, I love the pink, it’s nice and bright and lush.

I also added in this Websters Pages paper from the Make a Wish collection, Eat Cake. I liked the reverse side, the black & white stripe and I used it a couple of times. I do like a black & white stripe paper and this one is a good stripe which went well with Dear Lizzy, Happy Place.

I don’t think a month goes past without me recommending something from MAMBI on the blog, usually one of the Puffy Arrows pack. I love the Love Arrows pack, I do think these arrows really make an impact. I don’t know about you, but when I look at my LO below, my eyes flick to the 3 arrows I have used, I think they’re really cute and they do add something special to a LO. At only £1.99 per pack of these puffy stickers, they’re so worth it. Really, they’re such an easy embellishment to use on a LO, arrows work on everything!


I think this month my LO’s go from super simple and start getting more and more embellished as I go along! This one is so simple, take your photo and cut two pieces of paper the same size, then place across the page. I used the pink spotty Say Cheese paper and also the Eat Cake paper which I cut into strips for above and below. My journalling, I thought about setting it on my computer and printing it out but seriously, I couldn’t be bothered! So I cut some strips of white cardstock and wrote it by hand. It’s so much quicker for me that way. I dotted around some of the MAMBI Love Arrows. I also used the ‘beautiful’ rubber shape from Maggie Holmes and some Enamel Hearts from Hey Little Magpie. The last thing I did was I really wanted to use one of the Dear Lizzy Brads… but none of the really worked for me. So I started taking one apart. Then I punched a new circle to replace the colour. Then I punched another circle in the pink spotty paper. Then I traced the banners than hang down cause the colours weren’t quite right for me either. And then…. the brad I was using wasn’t right either so I dug through my stash and found a 5c one which I thought hey, since this LO is about money I can use that here (I mean where else am I going to use a 5c brad?) so I took the idea of the brads from the Dear Lizzy Brads pack and made my own!


I’ve always had very little self control when it comes to paper flowers, I love to buy them and hoard them in boxes full of gorgeousness. I am not much of a user of flowers but occasionally I will bust out a heavily over-embellished LO using a few packets of flowers all in one go! I had to buy these when I saw them in the shop and I do have plans for a flower heavy LO but on the LO below, I used just one from the pack. It didn’t quite match what I had in mind either, so I coloured the middle with a yellow marker and it worked so easily so remember that if the flower doesn’t quite match what you need, you can always colour it to your needs.

Now these Freckled Fawn, Hearts and Plus Signs are awesome! I bought them in black and was so happy to see they were matt black. I don’t know why that made me so happy but they’re something a little it different and I like something a little bit different! I am dying to do a you + me LO and use one of the plus signs too.

Again, I used the Say Cheese pink spotty paper and I left the cut off strip on the bottom as well. Then I used the same paper that is on the cut off strip, from the 6×6 Paper Pad and a strip of the yellow striped reverse of Lemon Berry paper behind. I built up my title using the fabulous Pink Paislee, Outfitters, Meadow Gold Foiled Thickers and some older ones from my stash. I dotted around some Rubber Charms from Pinkfresh Studio, a couple of Puffy Arrows from MAMBI, the Black Puffy Hearts from Freckled Fawn and the Cocoa Vanilla Flower.
Something else I did on this LO was use a new product called Nuvo Crystal Drops. This product is a little bit like the old Liquid Pearls if you’ve ever used those? But it dries a lot quicker, and so much harder! It is enamel dots in a bottle! I am in love, and they will be coming to the shop soon! I have used them around the edge of this LO, turquoise down either side and pink, top and bottom. I’m so impressed with them, I can’t wait for the stocks to arrive so I can buy more colours…… lots more colours! It’s great to be able to control the size of your enamel dots, I know I am always wanting more smaller sized ones and now I can make them whatever size I want! So please admire my hand-drawn white line and enamel dot border on this LO. It’s so tactile in real life, I am so looking forward to using Nuvo Crystal Drops a lot more.
Here’s a little picture of some things I’ve done with the Crystal Drops. I covered some wood veneer and learned that it’s much easier to do a couple of thin coats rather than a thick one. Unfortunately the only colour that I have that’s in stock, is the Carnation Pink and my photo makes it look coral or red for some reason? It’s honestly a bright pink in real life.

So I wrote all that the other day and guess what, the drops are here!!! Check them out here! I’m so excited, I can’t wait to order some more colours! Hurry up though, the only came in on Wednesday and they’re already selling out!!! I missed out on the bright yellow, I’m so bummed about that 🙁

 

Have you guys checked out the Exclusive Flair Badges from Hey Little Magpie? There’s brand new Foiled Flair as well, I can’t wait to stock up on those and have a whole bunch sitting in my shopping basket waiting for my next checkout! But I do love the #Hastag Flairs which you can buy there all together in one set, or you can buy them individually as well. I have been loving using these words on LO’s, they’re great! I used the #Happy on the LO below. I can’t decide if #Happy or #Awesome is my #Favourite…. #Obviously!

I do love 6×6 Paper Pads, I love how the patterns are reduced in size. The way I use patterned papers is usually in small sizes, so I do get on with a 6×6 pad well. The Dear Lizzy, Happy Place pad has some gorgeous colours and patterns in it. I LOVE the pink spotty paper in a smaller pattern lol!

Get me here eh, using a patterned paper background! This doesn’t happen often… I did have to have some blank space in there, I can’t help myself! I layered my photo on papers from the 6×6 Paper Pad, I doubled up on the grey spot, Lemon Berry paper, using the large sheet as my background (cut to 9×12″, my new favourite size) and then using a piece from the 6×6 Pad too. I layered over another sheet from the 6×6 Pad and even left the cut off strip on the top of the paper too, and doubled up with another of the same cut off strips which I added to the bottom. I left the hanging hole on them as well cause I thought it added some extra interest. I busted out the sewing machine for this LO and the one below as well. It turned into a major afternoon job because my needle housing fell off and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to put it on again. Thank god for google, and for the OH having the right size allen key to tighten up the minute screw I needed to tighten! Just a quick PSA, when your sewing machine starts clanking at you, stop sewing then instead of carrying on pretending it’s not happening 😉
My title uses old Thickers which I think came from older Dear Lizzy lines and the colours worked for me. I used one of the brads from the Dear Lizzy Brads Pack and I couldn’t resist the balloons from the Simple Stories, Sunshine & Happiness Chipboard Shapes so I chucked them on too. I’ve used one of the lush Cocoa Vanilla, Free Spirit Little Hearts alongside one of the Illustrated Faith Enamel Hearts in Banana yellow.
The wooden shapes I’ve used here came from the Cocoa Vanilla, Totally Rad Wood Veneer Shapes pack, that’s the crown, arrow and smiley face. Because I got some of the Nuvo Crystal Drops and was playing with them, I dug out some old Liquid Pearls and was comparing the two, which is why I covered some of the wood veneer with pearls and made them pink! The Liquid Pearls definitely wasn’t self levelling like the Crystal Drops and it gave an interesting texture on top of my wood, but it’s different and I like different. I will be covering something with Crystal Drops soon to see how that works. I used the Gloss Carnation Pink Crystal Drops to put a line of dots on my LO as well. It is really easy to use the drops, I just dotted away the same way I used to with Liquid Pearls. Practice a little bit on a piece of cardstock and away you go. My dots are not perfectly even by any means but I don’t think they have to be.

I LOVE these Thickers! Meadow is an older design, I already have these in a few colours but here they are in gold by Pink Paislee! I had to have them…. in fact, I bought 2 packs, I love them that much! You need these in your life, they’re perfect!

I’ve used the word fancy on my title below, from this cute as pack of Puffy Phrase Stickers from Heidi Swapp. These words are pretty cool, lush colours and I’m a big fan of anything puffy in the sticker line!

So my last LO is getting a bit cluttered for me don’t ya think? I’ve just gone from being blonde for the last 13 years, to brunette again. I needed a change. The LO below was after my first lot of highlights went in and the LO above is after the second lot. So it’s an evolving story of colour with my hair and that’s why there’s 2 LO’s about it this month!
I used a big piece of the Websters Pages, Eat Cake in the background of this LO. I actually thought this black & white striped paper was from the Dear Lizzy, Happy Place line cause it went so well! Then I used some of the yellow striped Lemon Berry Paper on top. I layered up some pieces from the 6×6 Paper Pad on top. I broke out the doilies on this LO as well, check out all the doilies available in the store. My title is using the Heidi Swapp Puffy Phrase Sticker ‘fancy’ and the Pink Paislee Gold Meadow Thickers. All the embellishments on this LO are from the MAMBI Insta Love Chipboard Stickers pack, I accidentally bought 2 of those packets which is why I got a bit sticker-happy, using them on this LO hahaha! Usually I’d have to hoard but since I’ve got 2 packs, I can actually use one. You guys understand right? And the bow I’ve used comes from a pack I got at a stationery store in New Zealand but there’s lots of similar bows available in the store. Then I went a bit old school on this LO and added some ric-rac. I used to be a heavy ric-rac user but I kind of fell out of using that and started using a line of adhesive bling or pearls as an alternative for some reason. I know I’ll now be using the Nuvo Crystal Drops as my new ric-rac/line of bling/pearls – Crystal Drops are the new ric-rac! But I sat there thinking this LO needed an extra something and I dug into the ric-rac and ribbon box and stapled some on!

 
So there’s a little taste of some LO’s using the Dear Lizzy, Happy Place line. My LO’s turned out much more colourful than I was expecting after seeing the collection online. And the Websters Pages, Eat Cake, black & white striped paper would be a great addition to your stash too.
Definitely check out the Nuvo Crystal Drops in the shop too. I think these will be hugely popular and sell out quick because they’re so versatile and easy to use. They dry quick and hard and come in such pretty colours! I am sure I will be using the heck out of them next month 😉 Till then, have a great July Magpies!