Modern Mercantile | Mini Pattern Paper

 

One of my most favorite items in the newest line is the single sheet of Mini Patterns. There are so many different ways that you can use it! The simplest is to cut them apart separately, but you can also fold them expertly and make a mini book or cut some simple patterns like i did into each 4"x4" square which creates an entirely new piece of layered pattern paper.

The silhouette cameo is perfect for this (but you could also use one of martha's all over the page punches too) as the grid in the software makes it easy to pop your shapes into it so you know exactly where to cut, and exactly how far apart to space your shape, as i did with a simple heart that i created in photoshop and then loaded into my silhouette software as a .png file. 

Then I cut some 4" x 4" papers and added them behind the hearts to create some extra patterns (the ledger paper is from last month's antiquarian kit).

After creating the new background i added a few pictures and some simple embellishments. fast and easy but makes a big impact.

happy cutting!

Vintage Decorations

The holiday season is upon us. Thanksgiving is in a few weeks (can you believe it!?) and Christmas is just around the corner which means of course it's holiday crafting time. Today I'm going to show you how to make a simple vintage inspired ornament or wall hanging with old book covers.

It should only take you about 15 minutes to make, and at this busy time of year I love fast, cute crafts that I can use to decorate my home. I especially love cute holiday crafts that incorporate texture and a good mix of vintage & new products.

Supplies needed :
JBS - Christmas Ribbon paper, Red Black line accessory sheet paper, rhinestone stars in red, rhinestone brad in red, seam binding in red & white,
vintage - book cover, reflector, milk cap & sewing bobbin (from Nov 2012 antiquarian kit), chandelier prism, german foil
misc - eyelets, foam adhesive squares

Gather your supplies & cut a 1.5" piece of the Christmas ribbon paper and make an accordion flower. glue the reflector onto the center of the book cover and glue the accordion flower on top of the reflector. add punched hanging holes to top of book cover, add eyelets and ribbon.

Layer the milk-cap onto the accordion flower and cut the "J" & "Y" from the new red black extension accessory sheet.

Layer & glue all of the elements until they're stacked as shown. use the sewing bobbin as the "O" in "JOY" and add the rhinestone brad as an accent. Add the Chandelier dangle to the bottom of the book cover and accent with a red rhinestone star sticker.

Simple & fast.

Happy holiday crafting!

Scrap Vintage : Mixing old & new

 

I joke with friends on instagram that #isaveoldthings. I can't go to a thrift or garage sale without picking up a few things that others might think are worthless. I have piles of things in the studio that i store in bins & boxes.  Interesting old wooden tools with painted handles. Broken vintage jewelry, especially if it has some bling. Interesting pieces of chippy wood from an old workshop. Christmas reflectors, mercury glass beads and old red dennison labels. Vintage metal sewing machine bobbins and wooden industrial thread spools. Bottles full of anagram letters and wooden bingo numbers. I can't help it.

It's one of the reasons why I adore the JBS line and the kits so much, especially the Antiquarian. There are always gorgeous vintage bits & pieces to use, From paper ephemera to cool buttons and beads, Jenni finds the most amazing things (just wait til you see November's, it's my fav yet!).

I love how incorporating these items into a piece, mixed with newer JBS designs, works so well. Adding a little metal, glitter and bling can add so much texture to something you're making. The vignette I made above uses a vintage album page from a past antiquarian kit (there's some similar ones in the shop) as the base as well as mix of vintage & new pieces from JBS that I had stored in a vintage cake tin on my studio table. 

I hope to see all of you incorporating a little more vintage into your work.

Happy Friday!

Breaking News! Kerry Lynn Yeary Returns to JBS!

We're so excited to announce that Kerry Lynn Yeary is returning to Jenni Bowlin Studio!  She worked her magic with one of her past JBS Mercantile kits and some Jenni Bowlin Studio product this week, but she should have her October Kits and JBS New Release in hand soon.  We are so looking forward to your magic reappearing in the Design Team Gallery and on the Inspiration Blog.  Welcome bakc KL!

"hi everyone. i'm so excited to be back on the design team at jbs after taking a year off from design team work. i have missed working with jenni & the entire jbs team, they are the most supportive company, and i'm really happy to be back and can't wait to start cutting paper & getting that beautiful box of jbs goodness again."

x0x,

kL



We are still accepting applications for our first ever JBS Ambassadors Design Team Call!  Call ends on September 16th at midnight CST with winners announced on September 26th.

Back to School with Kerry Lynn Yeary

Today Kerry Lynn Yeary is sharing a great organizational tool for all those school papers.

I've been wanting to have a more organized way of documenting the littles school year experiences ever since the bean started kinder 3 years ago. Up until now I have just been writing notes on our family calendar and putting select bits of memorabilia and schoolwork and art projects into a box, not the best thing to do when you want to remember "when" they got that 100% in spelling or drew that family portrait.

This year I decided I wanted to make binders "Diary of a wimpy kid style" and have everything ready before school started. I got simple plastic window binders at target and then added some printables that I designed to the gorgeous JBS "group photo" paper. I printed the appropriate grade year for each & then cut the papers to size and slide them in the front window.
JBS products used : Group Photo pattern paper, Deco Chain pattern paper, Photographer's Mark chipboard buttons, mini Chalkboard Alpha stickers in black

Since these binders are going to be sitting on the counter, near our mail basket & other home organization items I wanted to know who's binder was whose so I could select them easily when I wanted to add a layout, memorabilia item or write in the calendar.

To do this I cut a strip of kraft cardstock to size then added a slightly smaller piece of JBS "Deco Chain". Then I stamped the JBS medallion stamp on a tag, cut it out, added each name with the black "Chalkboard Alpha" stickers, and mounted it on a JBS "Photographer's Mark" chipboard circle before mounting it on the paper spine & sliding it under the window sleeve.

The interior pages hold the printable claendar that I created for the school year and I'll be adding memoralbilia, art, as well as layouts documenting pictures that I plan on taking over the year.

I'll have the printable of the outer "Diary of a" pages {preschool through highschool} as well as the interior calendar pages posted on my blog on monday if you'd like to download them to use for a similar binder.

Here's to another fabulous school year!

x0

kL

Happy Fourth of July!

We hope all of you stateside are having a lovely Fourth of July weekend!

Here is a lovely bit of decor from Kerry Lynn Yeary. Be sure to check her blog for the details on how she created this charming slice of Americana. :)

Blue Ribbon Stamp Embroidery

hey everyone, kl here.

yesterday you saw a gorgeous butterfly embroidery by shimelle and today i wanted to show you another embroidery technique, turning the gorgeous blue ribbon stamp, which i embroidered on linen, into a sweet pin that you can include on a gift card. this one is going to my son's kindergarten teacher {who my daughter also had for kinder} as i thought it would be a sweet end of year gift to show her that she's someone that my husband and i believe is one of a kind.



to start i stamped the blue ribbon onto linen that i already had mounted on a mini hoop with a light hue ink so that the stamp won't show through once the embroidery is complete. i used white back-stitches on the ribbons, alternating long stitches around the rosette and then i filled the center of the rosette with french knots. the embroiders guild website has a great stitch diagram for stitching if you are a beginner {here}.

after the stitching was complete i removed the linen from the hoop and trimmed the linen leaving at least .5" of edging around the entire design. then i tucked the linen edging to the back by tacking it with a hot glue gun.



after tacking i added a pin back to the center of a piece of felt and then mounted the embroidered image onto the felt with hot glue. then i trimmed the felt to within .25" of the embroidery with pinking shears.

hopefully our children's kindergarten teacher will know just how much we appreciate her and how lucky we feel to have had her introduce our children to their first year of school with her.

Inspiration Journal by Kerry Lynn Yeary

Hi everyone, kL here!
It's my turn today to share a minibook for JBS + Write.Click.Scrapbook Mini-Album Week! And, after perusing my mini, and entering the giveaway in the previous post {here} don't forget to check in at WCS for double the inspiration as well as another giveaway!



As most of you know I adore using vintage books, especially old readers digest's because underneath those boring paper covers are almost always amazingly beautiful vintage patterns, like in the cover above. I'm also a huge fan of inspiration boards, but sometimes, rather than clear the one I have in the studio I like to make a mini version where I can journal, paint and add inspirational images instead. It gives me some time to play with new product or new techniques, without worrying about the outcome and the bonus is that I will have a beautiful journal at the end that I can use for future inspiration on layouts or altered projects.



For this inspiration journal cover I added of the new be our guest pattern paper and some vintage ledger paper to some large JBS chipboard flowers & then sanding the edges & sewing. then I layered them under a vintage tin butter dish with the 4"x4" schoolhouse paper {here} and the much loved pinked circle with some martha stewart micro-beads added to the top. add some extra embellies and a few charms and then attach to the book cover with a glue gun.



For the pages of my mini I removed the interior pages from the book and then made 6 piles of 10-12 pages that i then sewed together for 6 gathered pages. Then I added some linen fabric along the sides {for a little diy binding} and then add grommets and link together with the cover with some ball & chain {I re-purpose these from those chipboard sets we all have in our stash}.



The interior pages have alot of paint doodling using the new JBS for ranger dabbers and I also added alot of my favorite rub-ons from my stash, like transferware which is one of my all time favorites as well as pearl buttons and pearl flowers.



The goal here is to play and fill the pages, and eventually there will be inspirational quotes and pictures added as well.



some more paint doodling and a strip of one of my most favorite pieces of vintage barkcloth fabric.



The chipboard butterfly was also painted with the dabbers by using them as a wash {diluted heavily with water}. after it dried i applied more of the transfer-ware rub-ons and used a white sharpie paint pen inside the rubon flowers.





I'll be back in a few days to share more so you can see the inspiration pieces once added.
happy thursday!
x0

Holiday Display by Kerry Lynn Yeary

created using a 7gypsies receipt holder, remnants of my jbs october halloween kit and lots & lots of scraps from previous years. best part? that the 10 individual pieces can be removed, stored til next year & i can use the receipt holder for thanksgiving too. that's how you stretch a scrapbook loving buck! ;)

Thanks for the inspiration Kerry Lynn!

We actually have a few of these receipt holders in the General Store. and did you hear the part about the paper pieces being removeable? and making a Thanksgiving version? I think this and this would be perfect for that. and don't forget that Jenni always has a vintage Christmas kit mid-November! and with these! How fun would that be?

Boo Bouquet by Kerry Lynn Yeary

i love crafting for the holidays almost as much as i love taking traditional scrapbook supplies and altering them into a vintage inspired home decor piece. One of my newest favorite holiday scrap supplies are the jbs halloween chipboard buttons; the vintage images are so sweet.

for this project i used some vintage crepe paper to create mini rosettes and hot glued them to floral stem wire and adding some jbs orange vintage buttons and halloween chipboard buttons to create a tiny halloween inspired bouquet.

the base is created by covering a small wooden block with a scrap piece of the jbs "vintage black branch" paper and a mini "boo" bingo card {cut from the back of the large halloween bingo card packaging} and then hot gluing the stems of the flowers inside a mini wooden sewing spool. add some orange seam binding {from the playdate seam binding set} tied in a bow.

jbs supplies used : halloween chipboard buttons, vintage orange buttons, playdate seam binding, vintage black branch pattern paper, mini bingo card {from large bingo card set packaging}.

Delightful! Thanks for the inspiration Kerry Lynn!

Welcome to JBS Kerry Lynn Yeary!

More exciting news! Kerry Lynn Yeary is joining the JBS team! Her creative genius will be featured here and in the JBS Mercantile Gallery each month! Welcome to the team KL! :)