... just Laura

Kerri Bradford Studio: Isabella Framed Project

 

Hey everyone! I'm really late in sharing this project that I created for Kerri Bradford Studio. I created this almost two months ago, and Kerri shared it over a month ago. This was part of Kerri's iNSD celebration, which is always such a fun, and super inspiring, time of the year! When Kerri mentioned focusing on doing something creative with alphabet stamps, I knew exactly what I wanted to make. 

 

My niece is expecting her first baby next month (and seeing as how I typed this up almost two months ago, she has since delivered her baby girl several weeks ago) and I wanted to make her a little something to hang in the nursery highlighting the name they picked out for their little girl - Isabella. I went with a chunky black frame that has an 11x14" opening. Since I didn't have any cardstock larger than 12x12" in size, I lined up strips of white cardstock to complete my 11x14" background, and then spritzed on a little black misting spray.

 

 

I knew the nursery colors were light pink and grey, and that the bedding they picked out had soft roses/flowers on it, so I used that as the inspiration for my design. I started by creating the block that would go in the center of the frame, with the baby's name. I used Kerri's new Headline Upper Outline stamp set, pairing it up with the Headline Upper stamp set, to stamp out the name "Isabella" several times.

 

 

I intended to do an ombre look, using a few different pinks, but it turns out, I didn't even have two pink ink colors that worked nicely together. So I decided to go with grey letters in the center, and then a row of white and pink both above and below the row of grey. 

 

 

I stamped the Headline Upper alphabet stamps in both grey and pink, and then stamped the Headline Upper Outline stamps on top of each letter. For the white letters, I simply stamped the Headline Upper Outline alphabet stamps onto white cardstock. Once all of my letters were stamped, I fussy cut each letter out individually. I adhered each "Isabella" name in rows onto a piece of white textured cardstock, which I then matted onto pink patterned paper and black cardstock. 

 

 

I used Kerri's Roses kit to die-cut a ton of roses from grey patterned papers using my Silhouette Cameo. I adhered them around the edges of my 11x14" background, layering them over one another to fill the space. Once all of my roses were in place, I adhered my "Isabella" piece in the center using thin pop dots. I added a few pink enamel dots to the background to finish it off. 

 

 

I love that I have the ability to create customized wall art, using basic supplies that I have on hand - paper, stamps, and inks. You can never have too many alphabet stamps sets, if you ask me. It's always nice to have a variety of fonts and sizes, so you can find the perfect fit for whatever project you are looking to create!

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Twelve Days of Christmas

Have you been visiting Kerri Bradford Studio this month? Kerri has her annual Twelve Days of Christmas going on (it started on December 1st), where her design team, along with lots of guest designers, are sharing holiday themed projects. There's also a fun freebie available each day for you to download, but it's only available for the day. So you need to be stopping by each day to make sure and grab those freebies ;) 

 

 

 

I have to admit, I usually take the easy route when wrapping Christmas presents, keeping my packaging super simple and easy. I'm a huge fan of gift bags, and I never use ribbon or bows. But every now and then, I will get inspired to get a little crafty in my gift giving presentation. This year, I have several people on my list that I will be gifting 8x10 home decor type prints too. I am always on the lookout for fun printable images that can printed, framed, and hung around the house (mostly found on Etsy).

 

 

And so often, I see prints that I know would be just perfect for a friend or family member. Like the vintage blueprints for the blow dryer (found HERE) and hair brush (found HERE) for my favorite hair stylist. I'm also pretty sure I'll be hanging these in one of our bathrooms as well. 

 

 

Or the chalkboard baking conversions (bought on a deal somewhere else, but you can find HERE) and kitchen measurements (bought on a deal somewhere else, but you can find HERE) for a friend that loves to bake. 

 

I had a bunch of these printables printed as 8x10 photos, done thru Costco. I have framed prints like this in the past when giving them to friends and/or family, but I figured this time I would just gift them the prints themselves, and they can use them however they want. I wanted a fun way to package these prints, and found some black envelopes that I ordered off Amazon. 

 

 

I wanted to decorate the front of the envelopes, rather than just scribbling their names with a pen like I would normally do. I started by printing out some smaller pieces of the grey plain patterned paper found in Kerri's Travelers Pack: Splendid kit. I adhered them onto a large piece of patterned paper, and then adhered that to the center of the envelopes. 

 

 

I picked out a few shapes from Kerri's brand new Christmas Calendar kit - the wreath and the "Merry Christmas" - and die cut both from colored cardstock. I adhered the wreath in the center of the grey plaid patterned paper pieces, and then adhered my Christmas sentiment in the center of the wreath. I added a few small silver accent dots to the wreaths to finish them off. Then I just slipped the prints inside and they're ready to go! 

 

 

Kerri also has a great sale going on right now. It's a Jolly Holiday Sale, where you can grab kits and classes for 20% off (use code JOLLY), and all stamps are 10% off. This sale is going on all thru the month of December, so be sure to take advantage if there's kits, stamps, and/or classes you've been eyeing!

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Recipe Binder

Happy Monday my friends! I have some unhappy news, if you haven't seen or heard already. Kerri Bradford's website was hacked this weekend, which I know has to be an infuriating thing to deal with. So for the time being, she's decided not to put her site back up, and is focusing on getting her new site up and running very soon. I had a project that was scheduled to go up today, so I'll be sharing it here in full for you all. 

I've been on this kick to get random areas of my life organized and in order, and one of those areas was the kitchen. Mainly, my recipe binder. I've had a binder in one of the kitchen cabinets where I put recipes that I print from online websites. They started out slightly organized, and then I got to where I would just shove papers in the binder, or yank them out and lose track of them.

I figured if I prettied up my binder, it would motivate me to keep it in order. My plan was simple. Create a divider page for each section of the binder that would be slipped into a page protector, and name each section as well. 

I started out by cutting a circle background for each divider page. I think anyone that knows me and my style knows that I LOVE circle backgrounds. I decided to use the background cut file from the Life Additions: Background kit, as it could be sized to fit most of the 8.5x11" page.

I knew that I would just need to add some paper strips along the side to cover the remaining inch and a half that the circle background didn't cover. I picked out 12 different patterned papers, in 6 different colors.

I went with tone-on-tone patterned papers to keep them on the simpler side, so that my die cut words would stand out. I ended up picking out some older papers, from Making Memories, Echo Park, and I think My Mind's Eye (I'm drawing a serious blank right now). 

From each patterned paper, I was also able to cut the strips of paper to add to each page where the circle background didn't cover my white cardstock. 

I relied heavily on Kerri's Tasty kit to label my divider pages, adding in one extra word from the Lazy Days kit. Once I jotted down what my sections would be - appetizers, salads & sandwiches, pasta, chicken, beef, etc - I then wrote down one of the descriptive words from Kerri's kits to go with each.

I sized each word to fit on the circle background part of the divider page, and cut all of my words from a few sheets of dark brown woodgrain patterned paper.

I had a package of white tags laying around, and decided to use those on each page to write the rest of my section descriptions on, but Kerri has some really fun tags in her Attach It kit that would be perfect for this too.

I was really close to digging out alpha stickers to spell everything out with, but in the end - as much as I'm not a fan of my own handwriting most of the time - I did decide to just hand write the rest. 

As for inside the binder? I simply punch holes in recipes I've printed out and add them into the binder, as opposed to slipping all of the recipes in page protectors.

I find a lot of great recipes on Pinterest, and I've found that when you print some of those recipes out, there's no photo of what it is the recipe is for. And I like photos, so I know what I'm trying to make.

So I will usually right click and save the photo off Pinterest, or the website where I get the recipe, print it out, and adhere it to the backside of the printed recipe. I should have taken a few photos to include here, but really, it's pretty self explanatory. 

For the front of the binder, I cut a circle background as well, but because the front of the binder was larger than my divider sections, I used the Background Basics kit so that I had a large background to work with. I love the "food glorious food" cut file from Kerri's The History Project class, and cut that from the same dark brown woodgrain patterned paper to add to the page. I slipped that right into the slot on the front of the binder. Easy peasy.  

Kerri Bradford Studio: Christmas In July

All this week, we're celebrating Christmas in July over at Kerri Bradford Studio. Kerri's got brand new Christmas stamps, a fun sale going on, and new projects from her design team all week long! And today it's my turn to share.

I'm not one to do altered projects very often, but when Kerri mentioned "home decor" as something fun she'd like to see for this week, I had the perfect idea. I have two 12x12" frames that hang by my front door year-round. I like to keep our Christmas decor super simple, and one of the three areas that I actually decorate in the house is our entryway by the front door. I had the idea to create two 12x12" altered canvases that could be hung in place of those frames during the Christmas holiday. 

I knew I would keep the canvases pretty simple, overall, but I did want to make sure they had some texture and interest to them. This is where a few cut files from Kerri, along with some Silhouette chipboard, came in. I also used chalkboard paint, texture paste, silver metallic paint, silver glitter paint, and some black misting spray. All of these combined gave me just the texture I was looking for. 

I picked out a circle background from Kerri's More Background Basics kit, and cut two of them at 6" in size. While it would have been much easier to work with one large piece, to cover the entire canvas at once, the circles would have been much larger than I wanted if I had cut it at 12" in size. So I just used the 6" background piece and figured I would move it around as needed.

I also picked out two Christmas words from Kerri's Merry Everything kit to feature on my canvases, and cut each one three times from the chipboard. The Silhouette chipboard is on the thinner side, but it's easy enough to layer 2-3 pieces together, to make a thicker word. 

The die cut circle pieces were going to act as stencils for this project. I laid the stencil on the canvases and spread texture paste over it. This was my first time using texture paste, and while I wasn't exactly very neat about it, I like how it turned out. After I finished one corner of the canvas, I lifted the stencil carefully and moved it around until the entire canvas was covered. 

Once the texture paste was dry, I painted the entire canvas with 2 coats of metallic silver paint.

After the metallic paint dried, I painted the entire canvas with 2 coats of silver glitter paint. 

Once the glitter paint was dry, I spritzed both canvases with black misting spray. I should be transparent here, and say that I'm not sure the misting ever fully dried. I didn't think that one all the way thru. Lol. Might have been better to mist it before adding the glitter paint?

I adhered the three chipboard words together, for each word, and then painted each word with black chalkboard paint. I gave them both two coats of paint. 

Once chalkboard paint dries, you have to "condition" the paint. I learned this when I painted one wall in Sarah's room with black chalkboard paint, and then looked it up on Pinterest to find out what to do to it next. You simple rub a piece of white chalk all over the paint. 

Then you use a slightly damp rag to rub chalk in a circular motion until you get the look you desire. I couldn't remember if I was supposed to use a damp cloth or a dry one, and I actually ended up using both a little. Too much chalk came off some areas of the words, so I just rubbed some more chalk on and then rubbed it back off. I just played around until they looked right.

Once the canvases and my chipboard words were painted and dry, I adhered a word to each canvas, in the bottom right corner using glue dots. 

The three layers of chipboard together made just the right thickness I was hoping for. This was my first time using the Silhouette chipboard and I know I'll be using it a lot more now. It cut perfectly!

I wanted to add a little something else to the canvases, but nothing that stood out too much. I remembered these silver glittered enamel dots that I've had forever, and they were the perfect, simple embellishment. I adhered a handful of the enamels to each canvas, adding them to the centers of the circles. 

This was by far the messiest project I've made in a really long time. Even though it really wasn't all that messy. I don't get very "artsy" that often, so the fact that I used several paints and texture paste was pretty impressive. At least to me it was.

These canvases will fit in perfectly with my simple Christmas decorations. I hate that I have to put them away for months before it's the right time to take them out and hang them up. Feels sad to put something pretty and sparkly away, but I'm sure people would think I was crazy if I hung them up now ;)

Make sure and stop by Kerri's blog all this week, to see what else she has going on and see what the rest of the team is creating!

Kerri Bradford Studio: Give Thanks Tags

I have a new project up at Kerri Bradford Studio today. This month, Kerri asked us to focus on the theme of "gratefulness" for our projects. I really went back and forth on what I wanted to do, flipping between a layout, mini album, or some sort of altered project. The altered project finally won out, and I'm glad it did, because it turned out better than the layout I actually started and then tossed.

I think it's such a fun Thanksgiving tradition to have each member of the family write down what they're thankful for. The last time my family did this, however, was five years ago. I did create a layout with all of those hand written notes (created two years ago for another Kerri Bradford Studio project), which you can see HERE. And last week, for my Bella Blvd project sheet layout seen HERE, I showed another way to include those notes on a layout.

I thought I would do things a little differently this time, and create some fun tags for everyone to write on, jotting down some of the things that they're thankful for when we get together for Thanksgiving dinner.

I originally sized these tags so that they were roughly 3" x 4" in size, thinking that I could then simply slip them all into a divided page protector and stick it right into my family albums. I still really like that idea, as it would keep them all together, could go side by side next to a layout (if I had any photos from the day), and wouldn't take up my space.

But in the end, I wanted the tags to be larger in size. They ended up being 3.5" x 5.5", which isn't that much larger, but just felt a lot larger than the 3" x 4" ones that I tried.

To start, I cut a handful of tags, using Kerri's Holly Jolly Christmas kit, from kraft cardstock. I ran each tag thru a dotted embossing folder and then spritzed it with brown misting spray.

I machine stitched around the outside edges of the tags a few times, and then I also decided to draw some rough lines around the outer edges with a brown pen.

I picked out some fall patterned papers (all from Bella Blvd) and used a leaf cut from the This & That: Gratitude [Just Shapes] kit to cut leaves from both the patterned papers and some white cardstock. I ran the white cardstock leaves thru a woodgrain embossing folder, even though it ended up not being that noticeable once I layered the leaves together on the tag.

I also cut some little banners, taken from Kerri's Banners kit, from white cardstock, which I layered over the leaf on each tag. I was originally going to use brads to secure the folded ends of the banners together, but decided that some tiny staples, using my Tiny Attacher, were much quicker.

I used tiny alpha stickers from Jillibean Soup to add family member's names to each tag. Everyone will know exactly which tag is theirs, and they can write on the backside of the tag, listing the things they're thankful for this year.

I still need to create a few more tags, as I only started with twelve of them, and one got tossed in the process. We actually don't have set plans yet for Thanksgiving, so I'm not really sure who all will be around. But I have a good amount started.

I also wanted to have a place to store these tags, and came across this cute little burlap bag at the craft store. It was the perfect size (about 6" x 8") to slip all of my tags into. I cut a piece of kraft cardstock for the front of the bag, and used a few glue dots to lightly position it on the bag where I wanted it. I then hand stitched a button to each corner of the cardstock to secure it to the bag. 

I don't plan on this being handled a lot, so having only the corners secured is ok with me. If I was worried about it staying in place, I would probably add some more hand stitching around the edges to really make sure it stayed in place.

I used the same patterned papers for the front of the bag that I had used for the leaves on the tags, so that everything coordinated. I pulled the "thanks" from Kerri's Giving Thanks kit, and cut it both from the navy blue woodgrain patterned paper and white cardstock.

I could have done the entire phrase "give thanks" from that kit, but I wanted to include a chunkier word along with the cursive word. So I used Kerri's Weathered Door Alpha kit to cut the word "give". I had an extra banner laying around, so I added that on there as well, along with the year.

And just a funny little backstory on these photos. I usually take the easy way out and photograph projects in my scraproom, plopped right on the table. I'm not big on staging photos, mainly because I just don't have the time or the space. I had to take these photos while the daycare kids were napping, which meant my only option for good natural light was to go outside. I have this piece of wood that I bought a while back and painted with black chalkboard paint, with the intention of using it to photograph cards. I knew it would work well to photograph this project.

But I also knew that I wanted some leaves in the photos. We don't get much "fall" around here, but I do have a few trees in my front yard that drop a good amount of leaves this time of year. My backyard, meanwhile, has NO leaves. I wasn't about to try and photograph this project in the front yard, as I live on a busy street and have some questionable neighbors (and a few very nice ones). So I scooped up a container of leaves from the front yard and dumped them on the grass in the backyard. All to get a few good photos. But I think it paid off, since it made my project look so much better than if it had been sitting on my boring black desk :)

Kerri Bradford Studio: Brown Paper Packages

This week, over at Kerri Bradford Studio, we are focusing on "brown paper packages tied up with string", in honor of a very special birthday girl. That's right, TODAY is Kerri's birthday!! How fun that I get to share my projects on her actual birthday :)

When I was brainstorming what I would make for this week, I kept coming back to kraft gift bags. I always have a stash of kraft gift bags on hand, for easy and quick gift giving. It doesn't matter if I'm giving a birthday gift, a baby gift, a Mother's Day or Father's Day gift, or even a Christmas gift. A kraft gift bag is neutral enough to use for any occasion.

I always have intentions of decorating the bag, but 10 times out of 10 (not even kidding), I end up handing over a plain kraft bag. When Kerri brought up the idea of "brown paper packaging", I knew it was the perfect push to decorate a few of these kraft gift bags.

I played around with quite a few of Kerri's designs, and even die cut quite a few of her designs, before finally settling on these feathers from the Feathers kit. I have a large supply of feathers from Bella Blvd, and I knew I could work them in right along her cut files.  

I cut a few feathers from white cardstock, and then ran them thru a chevron embossing folder to add some texture. The chevron embossing folder probably wouldn't have been my first choice, but it was the only large embossing folder I had, and these feathers were big. 

I adhered the die cut feathers to the front of the bag, right along with a few Bella Blvd feathers. From day one, I have always said that the easiest and best way to adhere the real feathers is with a stapler. So I just inserted one of my foam pads into the bag (while it was still folded and flat), placed the feathers where I wanted them, and stapled them down with the stapler open. I then flipped it over, reached inside and pushed down the ends of the staples.

To add my sentiment across the feathers, I cut a few banners, from the Banners kit, out of kraft cardstock. I adhered these the same way I adhered the feathers, but using brads instead of staples. I pulled the "happy birthday" from the Happy Birthday kit, and cut it from black cardstock and blue cardstock to layer together.

I also thought the daisy, from the This & That: Spring [Shapes Only] kit, would be fun to use. I had a few smaller gift bags that I wanted to decorate as well, one of them being a polka dotted bag, which is kind of fun.

For the die cut daisies, I cut 3 of the flowers, in varying sizes, from white cardstock. I layered them together, adding adhesive only to the center of the flowers, so that the petals could curl up a bit, and added a threaded button the center.

I also added some quick pen lines around the edges of the daisies, just to break up all of the white and bring in a little more touch of black. I picked the "celebrate" from the Something To Say kit.

I wasn't actually planning on adding a real feather to these smaller bags, as my plan was to place the daisy in the center of the bag. But since the feathers were out already, I decided to add one to each bag, tucked behind the layered flower.

Kerri is also doing some giveaways on her blog this week, so you should be checking in every day this week. I contributed some Bella Blvd goodies for today's giveaway. If you head over to Kerri's blog and leave a comment, you'll be entered for a chance to win. US residents only. You can get in on all of the giveaway thru Saturday, and all winners will be announced on Monday.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Framed Prints

When Kerri asked us to "think outside the box" for our projects this month, my mind immediately went to wall art. I have quite a few walls that need a little something to complete them, but I decided to focus on the kitchen instead. Well over four years ago, I re-did my kitchen, and I picked out a ton of picture frames to display in the area above my kitchen cabinets. It's taken me forever to actually fill those frames.

In fact, over a year ago, I did a post about the status of those frames, which you can read HERE. It's kind of funny, yet kind of pathetic, that so many of those frames remained totally emtpy for almost four full years. I'm so glad Kerri inspired me to work on getting them all filled up.

I put in a request to Kerri for a kitchen/food themed kit of her fabulous hand written, brush script words, and she came back a few days later with her new Tasty kit. I did come across some other words and phrases in other kits, and even some of her freebies, that would have worked for this project. But I really love the kit Kerri put together, so I stuck with that kit for my word choices.

Because these frames sit high up in the kitchen, I knew that I really didn't need to spend time cutting out the words and piecing paper products together to fill those frames, as no one would be seeing them up close. So I decided to make some digital prints, using the PNG files of her designs.

I love the chalkboard look that is so trendy right now, and knew that I could use the hand drawn brush script words to give that same sort of chalkboard look I was going for. I love adding in black and white prints, canvases, and photos in my home décor, since I have a lot of light oak furniture that I can't do much about right now. Adding in lots of black around my home has helped balance out those lighter items. 

I pulled up two different black digital patterned papers to use as my backgrounds. I actually ended up using the same patterned paper for almost all of my prints, as it just worked really well and had a bit of a distressed look to it.  

I created the "canvases" I'd be working on, depending on the size of the frames. To be honest, I did this step several times, as I looked up at the frames on top of the cabinets and just sort of eye-balled what size they were. And turns out, I eye-balled wrong on a few of them. I ended up with an 8x8" print, a 10x10" print, a 12x12" print, and a 10x13" print. For each of these, I pasted on the digital black patterned paper to fill the canvas.

I then added one of Kerri's overlays from her Magicalness kit to each canvas, placing it over the black digital patterned paper. I did lower the opacity to about 20% to make the overlay a bit more subtle, and so that my word would stand out more. I stuck with the polka dot overlay, the chevron overlay, the diagonal stripe overlay, and the heart overlay.

I then added my word of choice to the center of the canvas, changing the color overlay to white and adding a small drop shadow to the word as well. I sized my words as large as I could to fit the space. Once I was done, I flattened all my layers and uploaded my final prints to Costco and placed my order.

I also put together the "get in ma belly" print, which used the same basic design idea, but has a different look since it's not black. I pulled the yellow damask patterned paper from Kerri's Love: Every Little Thing kit, and added a digital ruled line overlay along with a heart overlay from the Magicalness kit.

I went with a little different look for this frame, which is on a little ledge by my countertop. I loved the "breakfast", "lunch", and "dinner" words from the Tasty kit and wanted to use them all together on a print. Btw, this was the one print that I used the second black digital patterned paper on. It had a bit of a paper bag look to it.

I added the little hand drawn boxes found in Kerri's Design Secrets Class Extras (if you haven't taken this class, you can purchase the kit thru today as part of her birthday celebration sale). I was debating putting something in those boxes, like a check mark or something, but in the end my family thought it looked good as-is. So I left it.

I love how simple and easy these were to complete. Because I stuck to the same basic idea, and used lots of the same elements (the same black digital patterned papers, the overlays, and hand drawn brush script words), I was able to create these in just minutes once I had the idea down.

  

I also created two BIG prints for my family room, using the exact same ideas. I went with two 18x24" prints, and I just love how they turned out. I pulled the "gotta love this" from Kerri's Something To Say kit, and the "be your self" from Kerri's Happy Stuff kit.

Knowing that you can use Kerri's cuts as digital files as well opens up a world of possibilities for creating your own wall art and home décor! I love what these have added to my home.

And don't forget that today is the last day of Kerri's 4th birthday celebration sale. She's offering 30% off the entire store on all orders over $15 - just use coupon code BIRTHDAY4 :)

Kerri Bradford Studio: Holiday Gift Extravaganza

This week we are having a holiday gift extravaganza over at Kerri Bradford Studio! We've all been busy creating projects with "gift-giving" in mind, and getting a jump start on the Christmas holiday. Today's my turn to share. My first thought when thinking of "gift-giving" was packaging.

When it comes to gift giving during the holidays, I have always been one to keep my wrappings and packaging pretty simple. If you look under our Christmas tree in any given year, you'll see all of the presents wrapped, but not a single bow or ribbon on any of them. Kind of boring, I know.

Turns out, I tend to use the same approach when it comes to creating my own paper crafted items for gift giving. Simple and quick. But hopefully, not boring. I whipped up a few quick projects with gift card giving in mind. I'm always giving gift cards to family members, and it's fun to have something cute to tuck them into.

 

For my first project, I created a square envelope perfect for tucking a card into, along with a gift card or gift certificate. I used a tear-away square envelope from Kerri's Signed Sealed Delivered kit, but before cutting, I added a Star Background to the envelope so that the front of the card would be covered in little cut out stars.

Before assembling my envelope, I backed the front part of the envelope with a piece of black cardstock. While I think getting a small peek at what's inside thru those tiny stars would be fun, I wanted to add a bit of darker color to the envelope.

The tear-away tab on the back of the envelope is so fun, but I also thought it would be fun to secure the envelope shut with a few pieces of washi tape. The back of the envelope should be as fun as the front, right?

I also cut a basic pillow box design from the Silhouette Store, and added just a few small stars from that same star background before cutting. I made sure to size the box so that a gift card would fit inside.

I added the same "Happy Holidays" sentiment to the front that I used on the square envelope. 

I have tons of little silver tins that I've managed to collect over the years, and they come in really handy for giving small gifts. Rather then stick it in a small gift bag (which is what I might normally do), I thought I would embellish the tin instead. I created a long star garland to wrap around the tin. I started by cutting a full 12x12 sheet of stars, from the Christmas Countdown kit, from black dotted patterned paper.

I machine stitched them all together into a long strand, and then wrapped it around the metal tin a few times.

I finished it off by printing the "Merry Christmas" art from the Ho Ho Ho kit onto white textured cardstock, and adhered it to the top of the tin, tucking two corners under the star garland.

I hope you'll visit Kerri's blog this week to see what the other designers have been up too.

They Really Did Rock: Treat Bags

This is new. I created a project just for fun. Not because I had to or because anyone told me too. It was created just because I wanted too. I really should do this more often. If only I had more hours in my days! Of course, this project has a story behind it, and the story is what inspired me to create the simple project. But if you don't care about the story (I won't be offended, as I know some only want to see projects ;)), just scroll down a ways.

This past Saturday, we had a soccer game worth sharing about. We have a U-19 team of 16 players, but on Saturday we only had 10 players show up for the game. A few we knew weren’t coming and a few we found out weren’t coming at the last minute. Meaning, we found out when they didn't show up to warm up. We play with 11 players on the field, so we knew it would be asking a lot of the 10 that did show up. Our games are 80 minutes long (40 min halves), so that’s rough with no subs. Especially when we have 2 girls with really bad asthma, who definitely need those breaks during the game when they’re having a hard time. The coaches gave those 2 girls strict instructions to come out the second they had any problems breathing. No questions asked.

We put those 10 players on the field to start the game, but we had one go down with a bad injury about 15 minutes in. We were playing in the next city over from us, and they are not known for their fields, to say the least. This player stepped in a hole and did something to her knee, ending with her getting carried off the field by the coach and the referee. She felt so bad, and kept trying to convince the coaches she could go back in, but they weren't having it. Since this put us down to just 9 players on the field, in a show of good sportsmanship, the other team did remove one of their players (but still had 10 out there). Another 20 minutes or so in, we had another player go down. She has asthma, which is what I thought the problem was, but it was actually her ankle (that she was already having issues with) that took a good hit. We finished out that first half with 8 players on the field, and were up 2-0. 

We started the second half with our same 8 players, and the 2 injured on the sideline, knowing that one of those 8 players had to leave halfway into the half. These girls were playing their hearts out and giving it their all. Which is why I knew it was only a matter of time before Alyssa had issues with her asthma. And about 25 minutes in (as we were playing with only 7 players), Alyssa went down hard with an asthma attack. It was bad. We knew she was done for the day, even though she kept saying she had to stay in. This meant we were down to just 6 players (that includes the goalie), and you’re required to have 7 players on the field to play. 

With only 15 minutes left in our 80 minute game, we weren’t ready to just give up. Our team had worked too hard to just walk away from a game we were dominating, even with less players. We were also finally playing a team from our own city, as we had been up against teams from the opposing city for the last 5 weeks, and the girls had been looking forward to it. And this other team came in undefeated (we've only lost 1 game). The player with the injured knee said she would go out on the field, just to be a body. After being given strict instructions to not move at all, and to literally just stand there, she slowly made her way onto the field, as Coach Joe was carrying Alyssa off the field. Our injured player did exactly as she was told, and stood in one spot like a statue. 

So the other 6 players (with one in the goal) kept the game going for another 15 minutes. We were strictly playing defense. But as you defend your goal, you do end up kicking the ball to the other side of the field, so then Sarah had to hightail it back to her forward position, as she’s one of our faster runners and our main scorer. The other team did finally score against us in the last few minutes. But Sarah took it right back and scored another goal. With their 10 players to our 6 players. We ended up winning the game 3-1. It was really awesome to watch our 10 players come together like that. They all gave 200% of themselves and worked their butts off during that game. They left that field exhausted, beat up, and worn down. But I think we all left that field feeling very proud too! 

For the rest of the weekend, I kept thinking about how those 10 players deserved a little something special. And I knew I wanted to put something together, as I'm the team parent. It would have been simple to buy some clear cellophane bags to fill with goodies. But I'm a crafty person, and I always prefer to make something if I can.

I picked out a treat box from the Silhouette library. It's a little flap box that I've used before. I decided to cut them all from kraft cardstock, as I have a ton of it in my stash (and I very rarely use kraft). I sized each box to the largest I could get it out of a 12x12 sheet of paper. I also added a few stars to the part that would show on the front, to create some little star cut-outs. After each one cut, I lightly misted them with some purple spray mist.

I was going to go with "you're awesome" for the front of the box, but in sizing the word "awesome" to fit, it was going to be too small to cut well. I have had issues with certain cursive words not cutting as well when I try and make them too tiny. So instead, I used this "you rock", which was taken from the phrase "you rock my world". I cut these all from one sheet of black cardstock.

I added the sentiments to the box templates before assembling the boxes. It's a lot easier to do this step first, since you can really push down on things to make sure they're adhered really well. I also added a silver brad to the hole in the middle part of the front piece, since it's harder to add those on once the boxes are assembled.

Then I went about assembling the boxes. I won't lie. I found this step to be the most annoying. No real reason. They're easy enough to do. Just make all the folds to get the shape, and adhere a few pieces together to get them to hold. But it still annoyed me. These boxes, once assembled, aren't huge. They're about 4 inches tall.

I added a second silver brad to the flap piece, and then tied them to each other with some purple/white twine to hold them shut. Our team color is purple, hence the purple misting and twine.

I put some black crepe paper in the bottom of each box, before filling them up with goodies. So on some of the boxes, that black showed thru the cut-out stars. But on most of them, you could see a little silver peek at what was inside.

Hershey's Kisses was my candy of choice! Everyone loves chocolate! I filled up those 10 boxes with chocolate and sent them off with Joe to hand out to the girls at practice on Tuesday. Just a little something-something to let them know how much we think they rock!!!

Kerri Bradford Studio: Framed Collage Project

Happy Monday everyone! I had such a productive weekend, and got a TON of scrapping work done. More than I even thought I would, and what's even more surprising is that most of it isn't even due for another week. Anyone that knows me, knows that I never work ahead. Lol.

In case you haven't heard yet, there is a brand new photo template kit up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today! I know how much I love working with Kerri's storyboard templates. I love a good photo collage when it comes to scrapping lots and lots of photos. 

I had been kicking this idea around in my head for a few months now. Well, not this exact idea. The photos I had in mind were of Alyssa's band friends that she's collected this past school year. She did send me copies of all of her photos so that I could try my idea out, but there's a lot more photos to work with (100+), so I thought I would start smaller and go from there.

So I decided to use photos of my daycare kids. Not just the ones that are here now, but a photo of every single child that I have watched over the years. I have created a few layouts that contain a good amount of these kids in one place, but I thought it would be nice to create something that could be displayed out in the open for everyone to see. I think that would help convince any prospective parents to bring their children to me, right ;)

When I first saw Kerri's Storyboard: Instagram Style kit, I knew it would be perfect for this type of project. I chose the template that held 16 photos. I then did a quick count of how many kids I have watched over the years. This was actually fairly easy, since I'm required to keep a "roster" of sorts for the state, which I have been filling out and adding to for the last eleven years. I counted out 35 kids. Which seems like a lot, and yet at the same time, I thought would be a higher number.

Then came the hardest part. Finding a photo for each child. For some of these kids, it wasn't so much finding a photo, but picking just ONE photo. Some of these kids were with me for one year, two years, three+ years. How do you chose just one photo, and from what age to you chose it. What about the ones that came as newborns? Did I chose a baby photo, or one from when they were older?

Then there were the kids from the very beginning. I took tons of photos of them too, but that was before the digital days. I have all of my negatives organized and can easily find what I need. But that's still a lot of digging around, taking the negatives to Costo for reprints, and then they're still not an actual digital file to work with. My scanner only works when it wants to work, so I didn't want to mess with that. Some of those earlier kids I was able to find photos of when they were older, since I've taken family photos for some of them. So even though they might not be the same young faces that I took care of at the time, I'm ok with using a slightly older version of them for this project.

There are three photos on here (the first collage I showed) where I actually took a photo of a photo, from one of my layouts. It didn't work perfectly, but it will do. And sadly, I had four kids that I just couldn't find photos of. I feel bad leaving them out.

I had picked up a poster sized frame that was 12"x36", so my plan was to create three 12"x12" photo collages to fill the frame. Since I ended up with 31 photos, I decided to fill the first template completely, and fill the top two rows of the second template, and the bottom two rows of the third template. I was bummed that I had that one empty square the bottom. And about a week after I finished this project, I got a new little daycare baby. I'll have to add her in there at some point.

    

Just to give you an idea of what my plan was, I created a 12"x36" canvas in Photoshop and copied each of the collages over, one on top of the other. Because I only used the top part of the second template and the bottom part of the third template, once I stacked them up, that left me a 12"x12" section to fill. My plan was to just create something to lay on top of those using cardstock and patterned paper. Keep in mind, I had each template printed seperately. But if you found a spot that would print something 12"x36", you could print something just like this all on one large photo.

This is a terrible photo of the completed project, but it's honestly the best I could get. I even took out the plexiglass, thinking that would help. But I was still getting lot of glare anywhere I went in the house. Hanging it on the wall didn't help. So you'll just have to trust me that it really looks good in person.

I adhered all three of the printed photo collages to the paper that actually came in the frame, just to hold everything in place. I had my collages printed at Costco, and each were $2.99, so $10 for all three of them.

I wanted to keep the paper area of this project pretty simple, since this is going to hang in the playroom (which is really our living room/dining room, so it's right when you walk in the door). I added a sheet of white cardstock that I very lightly misted with pink spray mist. I chose the "If you're happy and you know it ... clap your hands" phrase from Kerri's Happy kit. I wanted something fairly large and I think it kind of ties in with the whole daycare/kids thing. It's a song that plays on about 38% of these toys too, so I find myself singing it quite a bit!

To finish it off, I simply dug out a really old piece of heart patterned paper, a few aqua cardstock border strips, and a piece of brown polka dot ribbon. Easy and not too busy looking. When I get new kids here, and am ready to add a few more to the frame, I can add them right into the templates, since I saved them all as working files. All of the kids are in the order of which they started coming to me, so I would most likely just shift everyone up to make room at the bottom for the new ones. I can always make that paper area smaller as well. 

Next on my list is to find a spot to hang this. I had a spot in mind, and when I hung it up there, it just looked too small, oddly enough. So for now, it's propped in my scraproom. And with the school year coming to an end soon, I need to get working on one for Alyssa with all of her band photos from the year.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Altered Halloween Project

As part of the Halloween Extravaganza going on at Kerri Bradford Studio this week, I have a new altered Halloween project to share.

I have a confession. I don't go all out every Halloween and decorate my house top to bottom. I'm closer to the not-decorating-at-all side of the spectrum. Lol. I see photos everywhere I look of spooky, but really cute, Halloween decorations filling up every nook and cranny of homes, and I wish I could learn to incorporate it into my house in the same way. But I can't. So I limit my Halloween decor to the one small table by my front door. Which means I keep my decor items nice and simple, just like these paper mache "BOO" letters.

I picked up these 8" paper mache letters at the craft store a few weeks ago. I always enjoy working with paper mache letters and boxes for altered projects. They're so easy to paint and cover with papers.  

I knew I wanted to use the diamond background shape from the Foundations: Trick or Treat kit on the front of each letter, so I cut 3 seperate pieces from some Bella Blvd Halloween patterned paper. The other side of this paper is orange, which was what I was originally going to use. But I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't want to re-cut any pieces, so I just flipped it over and used the backside. 

I also re-sized the tree from the This & That: Halloween [Just Shapes] kit to the same height as my letters (8 inches), and cut it from black cardstock, along with some bats from the new This & That: All Hallows Eve kit.

I thought about painting the letters, but I just couldn't settle on a good color. Some sort of cream seemed to be the right choice, but I'm not a cream kind of girl. I thought some text tissue paper might be fun to decoupage on, and I thought for sure I had some. But I didn't. What I did find was some cream washi tape with black dots from 7 Gypsies. So I simply covered the front of each letter with torn strips of tape. 

I wasn't too neat about it, and I didn't even worry about how much tape was folded over the edges of the letters. I then painted on some black acrylic paint around the edges of the letters. Once again, I wasn't neat about it at all, and just made sure the paint went up to the edge of the tape.  

I spritzed on some white misting spray over the taped/painted letters. That part didn't work quite as planned, since the ink never did dry. I'm guessing it was because of the texture of the tape. I didn't stress about it smearing, and just covered the entire letters with Mod Podge.

After that dried, I then adhered the diamond paper pieces to the letters, using glue dots. I used my scissors to cut off the excess from around the edges of the letters and the insides of each letter. I added just a few layered bats to the letters, and called it "done".

 

And don't forget to check out Kerri's Halloween Extravaganza sale going on this week. It's a great time to stock up on Halloween and Fall kits!

Bella Blvd: Endless Inspiration Week - More Birthday Girl

We are sharing more projects today, on the Bella Blvd blog, using the new birthday collections. I thought I would share another one of my altered projects with you, using the Birthday Girl collection.

These fun little paper ribbons can serve two purposes at birthday parties. First, they make for a great tabletop decor item. This would look cute on the cake table or food table, or even set out by the presents. Second, you can hand them out to the party guests, either during or after the party. This is a great project to make with your scraps of patterned paper, since they are all assembled using bits and pieces of papers.

I used my Silhouette die cut machine to cut all of the pieces needed for these paper ribbons.

The shape that I choose (called "Ribbon Pinwheel", from Lori Whitlock) actually came with every piece you see layered on here, including the ribbon tails. I arranged all of the individual pieces so that I could cut two sets at once. I just covered my cutting mat with 2 different pieces of pattern paper (4x12 for each, since I have the Silhouette SD), side by side. So I cut a full set from 8 different pattern papers, and then mixed all of the pieces together.

 

However, these would be simple to create even without a die cut machine. You could achieve the same look using a variety of circle punches, scalloped circle punches, or even certain flower punches, in varying sizes. The ribbon tails are just strips of paper, with notches cut at one end.

I layered the pieces together, using pop dots on a few of the layers. In between two of the layers, i added a piece of Designer Tape, adding small staples to each end to help secure it.

I finished off each paper ribbon with either a threaded button, a crochet flower, or a sticker added to the center.

I cut 4 long pieces of curling ribbon for each paper ribbon, and curled them with my scissors. I tied them onto a wooden stick, and then I hot glued the paper ribbon to the top of the stick. I created all of these assembly line style, doing each step for all 8 at the same time. So they really did come together very quickly.

To display these, I found a long (but small) metal tin, and added some styrofoam and filler grass inside. Then I just shoved the wooden sticks into the styrofoam to hold the paper ribbons in place.

Bella Blvd: Endless Inspiration Week - Birthday Girl

Today is the big day! CHA officially starts today in Chicago, and I am positive that the Bella Blvd booth is looking fabulous and busy as can be. I'm kind of wishing I was there right now, but it just wasn't in the cards for me for this show. It might be different if I had paid vacation at this job of mine. But seeing that I'm self employed, I don't, and just can't afford to take a week off during the summer. So I'm at home, watching all the craziness happen though blogs, Facebook, Instagram, and whatever other places I can find it ;)

Anyways. The real reason I'm here blogging, is that starting yesterday, and continuing for 2 full weeks, we are having "Unlimited Inspiration" weeks on the Bella Blvd blog. We are sharing lots and lots of the booth projects that our design team has been hard at work creating over the last few weeks. I love when it's time to finally share them, and not keep them hidden away in my files.

Today, we are focusing on the new birthday collections. So I thought I would share one of my altered projects I made, using the Birthday Girl collection. I came across this unfinished, wooden shadow box frame at Hobby Lobby (that store is new to us in CA, and I am in love with it after one trip!), and I knew right away what I wanted to do with it. Create a fun tabletop decor item, that would be perfect for any little girls birthday party.

I painted the unfinished wood frame with white paint, focusing on all of the edges and corners that I knew my pattern paper would not cover. Then I cut strips of paper and decopauged them onto the frame using Mod Podge. I brushed an additional coat of Mod Podge over the top of the papers, to add a nice shiny finish to them.

I trimmed a TON of 1/2 inch x 12 inch strips of pattern paper, using just about every sheet from the Birthday Girl collection. I then cut each strip roughly in half, eyeballing it, since they didn't need to be perfect. I took a pencil, and one by one, I rolled each strip tightly around the pencil. After holding it in place for a few seconds, I slid the rolled piece off the pencil and then loosened it back up a bit. Kind of like you would do when curling your hair :)

I took the "Eat More Cake" sticker from the Just Write Journaling sticker sheet, adhered it to a scrap piece of cardstock, and added small strips of punched scalloped edges cardstock around the edges. I glued together about 8 small blocks of thick cardboard (cut from a box), and then adhered my sticker on the top and glued it in the center of the frame. This raised up the sticker, and allowed me to fill up the rest of the shadow box frame with the curled strips of pattern paper, tucking them under the sticker as well.

Make sure and visit the Bella Blvd blog for lots more inspiration from our designer today, featuring both the Birthday Boy collection and the Birthday Girl collection!

Bella Blvd: Baby Boy Altered Projects

A few days ago, I had some altered projects up on the Bella Blvd blog. It seems like forever ago that I created these. I actually forgot all about them, since the images ended up in some random folder on my laptop. These were created for the booth at Winter CHA.

One of my favorite items to alter are wooden and paper mache boxes. They are so easy to cover with whatever pattern papers you like to fit your needs, and they're even more fun to fill up with memorabilia. I altered two wooden boxes, using the Baby Boy collection. These boxes would be perfect for storing little keepsakes from baby's first year. This first box is about 8 inches square, and was purchased at a craft and fabric store.

I started off by taking off the hinges from the box, and then I painted the box with white acrylic paint. I never sand my boxes, but that's a personal preference. Then I measure out the top of the lid, and the sides of the box, and cut my patterned papers to size. I used Mod Podge, and decoupage them to the box. I added another layer of Mod Podge on top of the papers as well, to give the box a nice shiny finish.

When it came to embellishing the box, I kept it pretty simple. I didn't want anything to bulky on the top of the box, since at some point, I'm sure this would end up tucked away somewhere. I cut a few banner shaped pieces from patterned paper, and added them to the top of the box. I wanted to keep a bit of dimension, so I did not decoupage those pieces, and instead just used lots of glue dots.

For once, I got smart and I made sure the hinges were on the sides of the box. This way, the box can sit on a shelf nicely. I used lots of chipboard pieces from the Chipboard Icons to embellish the top of the box. Love how one package of embellishments added so much to the project.

For my second wooden box, I choose a smaller version of the first box. This box is about 5 inches square, and I thought the inset area on the top of the box added a nice touch.

I covered this box the same way I did on the first box. Painting the box with white paint, measuring and cutting my patterned papers to fit, and decoupaging them onto the box using Mod Podge. 

The "Baby Love" sticker from the Just Write Journaling sticker sheet was the perfect size for the inside area on the top of the box. I adhered the sticker to cardstock first, and cut around it, and then adhered it using pop dots for just a touch of dimension.

altered christmas gift boxes: a my mind's eye project

back when i was guest designing for my mind's eye, in october, i was also asked if i wanted to contribute a project to their december "holiday hoopla" on their blog. of course i would! they sent me over the 12 days of christmas collection, and here's what i came up with for my project.

i'm really not a "project girl". meaning, i would much rather stick to layouts and cards. but one altered project that i have created a lot are these covered paper mache boxes. i picked up a few different sizes and shapes at the craft store and went about covering them up with fun patterned paper.

before i started, i picked out a few chipboard accents that would work nicely with each box. this long box was perfect for the "merry & bright" banner piece. once i picked those out, i was able to choose my papers to match.

i kind of want to roll up socks and put them in this long, narrow box. it's the first thing that came to mind. and it wouldn't be weird, since the girls usually get some warm, fuzzy socks every christmas.

before i adhered the papers, i painted all the edges of the boxes, with white acrylic paint. i knew the papers would cover the majority of the boxes and lids, but i didn't want to fully wrap them around all the edges. by simply painting the outside edges of all the pieces, it gives a very finished look.

don't ask me what i'll put in here. if i knew, that would mean that i would have actually done some of my christmas shopping already. which i really havn't.

i used mod podge to adhere the papers to the boxes and lids. one coat of mod podge to adhere the papers on, and another coat of mod podge directly over the papers to give it a nice shiny look. it also helps seal the papers on better, so they can stand up to more wear and tear, and not risk the papers starting to peel off.

i'm all about using decorative boxes and bags at christmas. or even birthdays. the less actual wrapping i have to do, the better :)

you can see my projects on the my mind's eye blog today. and they're also doing a giveaway on that post, where one lucky winner will receive the 12 days of christmas collection. so head over and leave a comment, for a chance to win!

my last-minute gifts: kerri bradford & lori whitlock blog party

It's day two of the "Last-Minute Gifts" Blog Party! You'll want to stop by kerri's blog, to grab your freebie shape for the day. Remember, it's only free for one day, and then it goes into a kit that can be purchased at the end of the week. You'll also want to stop by both kerri's blog and lori's blog, to find the details to be entered for a chance to win a $50 gift card. My projects went up today, so I thought I would share them here. And if you read all the way through, you might find a little giveaway here as well ;) 

I often make little cards, or envelopes, for giving out gift cards. I didn't set out to create this fun box, for holding a gift card. But it turned out, that the size I choose to cut my box in was quite a bit smaller than I realized, once I assembled the box. It turned out to be the perfect little size for a gift card.

I used Lori's box with bracket flap (SVG's on Lori's site. shape also located in Lori's Silhouette store), and cut it from some red tone-on-tone pattern paper. I used a few snowflakes from Kerri's This & That Winter: Shapes Only kit, and adhered them to the front of the box using glitter brads.

When I saw Lori's Photo Box (SVG's on Lori's site. shape also located in Lori's Silhouette store), I knew I wanted to create a few, for sharing photos with family over the holidays. I have family members that we only see a few times a year, and Christmas is always one of those times. 

I tend to save up photos of our family, and my girls, and hand them out when we see everyone. I think it'll be so much cooler to hand them out in such adorable little boxes. And the recipients can easily keep them in the box, until they're ready to find a home for them.

I embellished the front of the box, with a loopy frame from Kerri's Life Additions #1 kit, and some pretty flowers from her Modern Nature kit.

With several golfers in my family, golf balls are a very popular gift of choice around here at Christmas time. There are usually a few boxes under the Christmas tree, or tucked in stockings. Instead of leaving them in their original boxes, I thought it would be fun to create a more unique box to hold them in.

I cut the "Play Hard" title from Kerri's The Ol' Ballgame kit, to add to my boxes. I love the grungy look to it.

Love the amazing details, that cut perfectly on my Silhouette.

Lori's Bracket Closure Box (SVG's on Lori's site. Also located in Lori's Silhouette store) was the perfect shape for it. When I adjusted the size of the box to fit the width of the golf balls, the box ended up being just long enough to hold four golf balls.

And now for the giveaway part! Kerri and Lori have generously given me a $25 shopping spree to EITHER of their stores, to give away to one lucky blog reader. Just leave me a comment, telling me your favorite handmade gift that you love to make every year, for gift giving. I will announce a randomly drawn winner on Friday!

seasonal framed set: a kerri bradford studio project

I have another share for Kerri Bradford Studio today. As part of "Get Started Now" week on Kerri Bradford's blog, the design team has been sharing ideas on creating cards/gifts/decor for Christmas now before the real craziness of the season begins.

As I was trying to think of a framed project I could make for gift giving, I came across Kerri's In Transit #1, which is full of subway art. I really love the look of subway art, but had yet to try cutting any of these on my Silhouette.

After a few minutes of pondering the themes in the kit, I decided that I would make a set of framed pieces that could be used throughout the year. The beauty of my plan, was that even though I created 5 different themed pieces, I only needed one frame to use with all of them. I choose to do a Valentines Day piece, a St Patrick's Day piece, a spring piece, a summer piece, and a family piece.

I started by taking out a really nice, worn wood frame that I happen to have handy. My opening on the frame was 8x10, so I cut all of my subway art pieces at about 8.5" tall. The designs are wide enough, that you can cut two of each design at once, on one sheet of cardstock. I just copied and pasted the shape, so that I could cut two of each. That way, I can make two sets of these framed pieces for gift giving. I find it so much easier, to mass produce things right from the start, if you have any thoughts of making more than one of something. When all my shapes were cut, I adhered them each to a piece of white cardstock that was slightly larger than the subway art piece, and I distressed the edges of the cardstock.

I then picked out some basic pattern papers, with tone on tone prints, in coordinating colors. I added some machine stitching around the edges, and adhered my matted subway art piece to the pattern paper.

I took some scraps of white cardstock, and misted them with different colors of mists, that would coordinate with each piece. After they dried, I used my favorite scalloped edged border punch on the strips, and slipped them under the sides of the subway art. I then raided my stash of flowers and brads, and added a few to each piece. Really simple and really easy.

A family themed print.

A Valentines Day/Love themed print.

A St Patrick's Day print.

A spring print.

A summer print.

All this took was a few sheets of cardstock and pattern paper, some flowers and brads, a frame, and a little creative energy. And you have a great seasonal framed collection of pieces to give as a gift, where the recipient can change out the pieces throughout the year.

Don't forget about Kerri's "Get Started Now" sale, that ends tomorrow. You still have time to load up on great designs, so that you can start preparing and working ahead on all your cards, gifts, holiday decor, and scrapbook creations!

tiny notes gift jar - a kerri bradford studio project

Kerri Bradford Studio is having a Get Started Now sale this week, that you won't want to miss.

Discounts are shown in the store and indicated with a 'sale' tag. NOTE: Please make sure you do all your purchases through the Store. There is a Store link along the top menu and over to the right. You can also go into the store HERE.

Today, she's sharing a gift giving idea that I designed, on her BLOG.

I have this huge collection of jars that I have stored away, that I used to use in my scrapbook studio years ago. I love finding new ways to use these jars, for gift giving at birthdays and holidays. I was thinking ahead to Christmas, and trying to come up with some ideas for gifts that I could make.

I thought it would be cute to make some tiny little cards and fill up a jar with them.

I used the Fancy Long Envelope, from the Signed, Sealed, and Delivered kit, to create my envelopes from white textured cardstock. I made them pretty tiny, so they're only 4 inches tall, and about 2 inches wide. I also the Circle Insets, from this same kit, to add some interest to the fronts of the envelopes.

For the flower and vase, I used the shapes from the This & That: Lucky kit, and cut them from tan, green, and orange cardstock. After I adhered them to the front of each tiny envelope, I added a small staple at the neck of the vase, and an orange jewel to the flower.

I also trimmed small pieces of blue cardstock, to slip inside of each envelope. I thought these would be fun to write tiny, little messages on. Then they could be slipped into someone's lunch bag, purse, or desk, to find later.

I created 12 of these envelopes/cards, and slipped them into a jar (from target). I dropped some shredded kraft paper in the bottom of the jar, before adding them.

Then I embellished the jar with ribbon and a fun little tag hanging from a chain. It's a cute little gift that you can give to a friend or family member, and they will have tiny little notes on hand, that they can then share with their friends or family. 

Be sure to check out Kerri's blog, as the design team will be showing fun ideas all week long!

bella blvd + silhouette: an advent calendar

how many of you own a Silhouette? and how many of you have seen the NEW Limited Edition Advent Calendar?

The 2011 Silhouette limited edition advent calendar is the best way to use your Silhouette to count down to Christmas. The calendar is a 15" wood shadowbox which includes a special download card redeemable for 25 boxes and drawers from the Silhouette Online Store. Each box and drawer template is downloaded automatically into My Library and is pre-sized and labeled for each compartment of your shadowbox advent calendar. Fill each box or drawer with a holiday message or a little treat and enjoy the holiday season.

i was lucky enough to get to work with one of these, for bella blvd. and today, i've posted all about it on the bella blog. here's just a few peeks of what i made. 

you can see the full project, along with lots more images, and hear all about how i went about putting this together. RIGHT HERE. and at the end of the bella post, there's a special offer from silhouette, for a discount on purchasing one of these great Limited Edition Advent Calendar for yourself. find all the details in that post.

also, check out the silhouette blog for links to other participates in this promotional event, and to see lots of other manufacturer's takes on the advent calendar concept!

halloween class treats - my mind's eye guest designer

i have a really quick and simple project up on the my mind's eye blog today. just a few ideas for creating fun little treats for a halloween class party at school.

you can read all about them, find more photos, and hear why i created such simple treats RIGHT HERE.

bella blvd sneak peeks: too cute to spook

it's day three of the collection reveals on the bella blvd blog.

 

a fun halloween collection! now, i'm the first to admit, that i'm not a big halloween scrapper. this might be because my girls are never dressed up in typical halloween colored costumes, which means my photos don't necessarily match the fun halloween collections. BUT. i do enjoy making halloween projects and cards. and for me to enjoy and love a halloween collection, it has to be fun and bright, with colors that really "pop". and "too cute to spook" is just that. 

 

there was this one year, that sarah actually did wear a witch costume, in typical halloween colors. thank you, sarah!  because i really wanted to use that little witch chipboard piece :)

 

 i love the mix of purple, orange, green, and black for halloween. that black cloud chipboard piece is so simple, and yet it was one of my favorite chipboard pieces.

 

or maybe the polka dot chipboard border was my favorite piece. i love the funky scalloped border, and it was the exact height of my photo.

 

small secret. i messed up on my hand written journaling. the very last word that i wrote. the journaling block was already stitched down, and i didn't want to have to take it apart. so i re-wrote some of the words on another paper, cut them out, and pop dotted them over the original words. looks like it was planned, right ;)

 

i love all the little word and phrase stickers. i'm embarrased to admit, how long i actually spend picking out the right mix for my projects, in the right colors. lol!

 

i couldn't resist using this boo-tiful monster girl cut out. too stinkin cute.

 

normally, i would have pop dotted the cut out piece. but i knew i wanted to pop dot the little thought bubble, so i just adhered the monster girl directly to the card front.

 

i was stressing over what my project was going to be for the halloween collection. i'm not always the best at coming up with ideas. we were out to dinner, for joe's birthday over the weekend, and i made everyone stop at michaels. i left them in the car, and told them to give me 3 minutes. honestly, i do believe i was in and out of the store in about that time, with this metal bucket in my bag. ran in, did a quick scan of the sections that i usually go to for project ideas, and found the bucket.

 

i love how this turned out. in fact, i'm going to have to go back to michaels and get another bucket. because i need one of these for halloween. i cut one inch strips of a bunch of my favorite papers, and machine stitched around the edges of each one. to adhered them around the bucket, i simply used glue dots. the ribbons tied around the handle are all just random, older ribbons that i had in my stash. i just looked for ribbons in orange, purple, aqua, and black.

 

i cut a few of the cute  monsters and bats out of the pattern paper, and adhered them around the bucket using pop dots. i finished it off with some of the phrase and word stickers.

head on over to the bella blvd blog, to see the entire collection, piece by piece. and don't forget to comment on the bella blvd blog, to be entered in a giveaway for this entire collection. 

the letter "Z": a little yellow bicycle project

i have a cute little project up on the little yellow bicycle blog, as part of my may guest designer spotlight. i know, today is the first day of june. but it's for may, i promise ;)

 

i used the adorable baby saurus collection to create this "Z" monogram for little zachary's room. you can read all about how i created this, along with the next batch of my Q&A session HERE.

end of school year gifts - bravissimo projects

this is my second post of the day. wanted to sneek this one in, in case tomorrow is the end of your school year and you need a gift idea. scroll down for my layout share from this morning.

it's that time of year. the end of the school year. time for teacher gifts and graduation gifts. i managed to sneak one of each in this week, just in time to hand them out.

 

most of us have family members or friends that are graduating from junior high school, high school, or college. i think one of the most given gifts for graduates is good old fashioned cash. it's usually my gift of choice. and while opening up a card to find a $20 bill or a $50 bill is pretty cool, i wanted to come up with a more unique way of giving the gift of money.

 

so i picked out a few pieces from the bravissimo collection, by making memories. you can find these at your local michaels store now. i picked out a small rosette, a medium streamer, and a medium sentiment. i choose the silver and white sentiment first, and then matched the streamer colors. then i picked out a rosette to compliment them both.

 

these pieces are so easy and simple to assemble. they come with glue dots or foam dots, depending which piece you're buying. it even tells you, "place sentiment here", "place rosette here". you can't mess up. i adhered the sentiment to the rosette, and then rosette to the streamer. 

 

then i glue dotted the ribbon to a glass jar. this is just like the jar i used for my oreo cookie jar, last week, except it's taller. they were both from target. then i filled up the jar with money.

 

instead of giving a $50 bill, i asked for all one dollar bills. i loosely rolled each one, and placed it in the jar. i just thought it was a fun and different way, to give the gift of money. i have a certain neice, who is graduating from high school tomorrow. i think she'll like this ;)

 

next up, is a fun teacher gift. i started this one, by choosing the sentiment. the "A+ Teacher" sentiment came in a 4 pack. you get 3 sentiments, and one metal piece. the teacher sentiment had a touch of green around the outside. so i choose this fun green ribbon. this ribbon was all assembled, and i just had to add the sentiment to it.

 

i had bought a few boxes of pencils. i knew i wanted to bunch them up, or put them around something. i went in search for a container and found this. it's from a wall vinyl piece that i had gotten in the mail. i took the vinyl piece out, to find a spot for on my wall. the container is made from a thick chipboard type of material. once i took the lid off, it was the perfect height for the pencils. 

 

i used a hot glue gun to adhere the pencils around the container. it took me about 5 minutes, and 36 pencils, to cover the container in pencils. then i hot glued the ribbon to the front. the inside of the container is empty. so you just have to come up with something to fill it with. i figured it would make a cute pencil cup. and i still had a box of pencils left. so i stuck all the remaining pencils inside. you could also stick candy inside, extra school goodies, or even flowers. some daisies would be cute. not in water of course, but just for presentation.

 

i think you really have to see these in person, to appreciate how nice they are. i'm super impressed with the quality of the ribbons. each one has lots of layers to them. fun papers, chipboard pieces, and really cute ribbons. and they're durable and strong.

 

in fact, i was actually trying to bend this ribbon a little bit. i wanted to see it curve a little more around my pencil covered container. but it's made with such quality, that it won't budge. which is a good thing, in my book.

for more fun ideas, check out the bravissimo blog. it's called a daily dose of happy. how fun is that! and if you're on facebook, make sure and become a fan of the bravissimo facebook page, to keep up with ideas, news, and giveaways. speaking of giveaways, i saw that maggie holmes is hosting one on her blog today, for a chance at some bravissimo goodies ;)

a fun award for my girl

a certain 14 year old in this house picked up some awards at school this week. if you guessed alyssa, you'd be right. partly, because she's the only 14 year old in the house. lol! the high school band had a concert on monday evening, and afterwards they had an awards ceremony. they handed out the participation awards, and then moved on to a few special ones. she picked up one of the two "director's awards" for the freshman band members.

then, on wednesday evening, they had the academic awards at the school. she snagged three awards. a honor certificate, for a GPA of 3.0 and higher for the year. a honor pin, for a GPA of 4.0 or higher (her's was higher ;)) for the year. and a baby buff scholar award (their school mascot is the buffalo) for freshman earning a GPA of 3.5 or higher for the year. we could not be more proud of her, and how well she has done in high school.

 

i think maybe a certain someone deserves a little something from her family. something fun, to let her know we think she's pretty cool. and do you know what she thinks is pretty cool? oreo cookies! she's not big on candy or junk food. but she is all about the cookies. it's an easy way to make her smile.

 

have you seen the new bravissimo collection by making memories? it's a fun reward and recognition collection, that can be personalized to fit your occasion. they are perfect for all the big occasions, like birthdays, graduations, and weddings. but they're also perfect for all the little occasions in between. just like giving alyssa her own little award from us, in recognition for all the awards she got at school this week.

the bravissimo collection can be found in michaels stores. they come in a variety of styles and sizes. you can pick out all your own pieces, and assemble them from start to finish. you can find semi-finished ones, that you just add your sentiments too. you can find finished ones, that are ready to go right out of the package. there are extra add-on pieces to really personalize the awards. there are even wands, medals, and shadow boxes. so much to choose from.

 

the semi-finished bravissimos can be customized with the perfect sentiment to fit your occasion. i chose this red and white semi-finished piece. there are 4 pack sentiment sets, that have 3 sentiments and one metal piece to adhere it too. i chose this fun "you are awesome" sentiment. all the pieces come with little adhesive dots as well. so it really is super simple to assemble these. i added my sentiment to the metal piece, and adhered that to my bravissimo piece. and i was done. 

 

i found an empty jar, and filled it with almost an entire package of oreos. i added my bravissimo ribbon to the front of the jar, and used some coordinating ribbons to decorate the lid of the jar. super simple. but sometimes, simple is all it takes to let someone special know how proud you are of them. i wanted to get a photo of her with her fun little jar of oreos. but the poor thing is so sick right now with allergies. so i'll have to snap a photo of her later.

for more fun ideas, check out the bravissimo blog. it's called a daily dose of happy. how fun is that! and if you're on facebook, make sure and become a fan of the bravissimo facebook page, to keep up with ideas, news, and giveaways.

a mother's day gift idea - a bella blvd project

 

it's mom's week over on the bella blvd blog. lots of inspiration planned, just in time for mother's day. which is this coming sunday, by the way. i'm hoping that i'm not the only one that didn't realize this. lol!

 

yesterday, one of my gift ideas was featured. you can read more about what's inside this jar, and just how simple it is to make one of your own, right HERE.

 

bella blvd also announced a fun contest for mom's. here's all the info:

spring canvas set - a making memories project

a few months ago, i created this fun project for making memories, using their new dilly dally spring collection.

 

i knew i wanted to create a canvas project of some sort. when i went shopping at michaels, i intended to get a 12x12 canvas to work with. i'm more of a square person, and can't really get into the rectangle shapes, such as the 8x10 size. anyways. i came across this set of three canvases, by artist's loft, with each piece being 4x12. i loved the idea of it. creating three seperate canvas pieces, but having them all hang together, to still give the look of one complete project. 

 

i started out by painting each canvas with some light yellow acrylic paint. not super light yellow, but not super bright either. yellow can be a hard color for me, but i happen to have a few decent ones in my stash. i knew i was covering the fronts with pattern paper. so i just painted the edges on top, and then all four sides of each canvas. i then choose my pattern papers, and trimmed each to fit the front of the canvas, leaving some of the painted edges to show. i sewed a zigzag stitch with my sewing machine along the edges of each paper, and inked the edges with brown ink. i then adhered them to my canvases. i used glue dots, and they held just fine.

 

these fun rhinestone "spring" stickers come in the cute banner kit. i wasn't using the other banner pieces, but decided to use the rhinestone stickers. i pulled some basic white tags from my stash, inked the edges with some brown ink, and cut the bottoms of each tag at an angle. i took my floral fabric piece (also from the banner kit i believe), and ripped it down the middle. i love the frayed edges on here. i tied small pieces to the top of each tag, and then adhered them to the first canvas in the set, adding the "spring" letters on top of the tags.

 

i wanted the butterflies to appear as if they were flying off the canvas. i'm not sure i totally captured that feeling, but i tried. lol! these cute die cut butterflies come in all different shapes and colors. i folded each one in the center, and then bent out the wings a bit. i used mini pop dots behind each wing, to lift them up off the canvas.

to see a short video, that shows part of the making of this project, visit making memories. there's a "video inspiration" section on the right side. you can also watch it HERE on youtube, where you can find all their videos.

some jillibean soup projects

i have a few projects that have been up on the jillibean soup blog recently, and thought i would share them all at once. i keep trying to come back here, and post about my layout, and have just been too busy and distracted to finish typing it up. so making this a quick and simple share, so at least they get shown :)

 

i admit, i'm not actually a huge fan of kraft cardstock or pattern paper. i feel bad saying that. lol! but i was drawn to this floral kraft paper, and had to use it. i think mixing it with other bright and fun colored papers helped.

 

 

 

the girls gave me this frame for christmas, and it was sitting up a shelf unused. decided to just make something simple to put inside.

 

 

been working on getting all my tax information together, for my appt tomorrow. joe and i have 3 small business's between us, so it's a lot of tedious paperwork. so glad to almost be done with it all. wish me luck, because i think i'm going to need it.

altered "love" box: a making memories project

i have a project up on the making memories blog today. a valentine's project. which just made me realize it's only a week until valentine's day. 

 

i used the new jet' adore collection to alter this paper mache box. i thought it would be a fun little box, that you could tuck little candies, lovenotes, or trinkets into. or you could even use it to store valentines cards from over the years. you can find these paper mache boxes at any craft store. don't quote me on this, but i'm 83% sure this box was about 8 inches x 8 inches, and about 3 inches tall.

 

i started out by painting all the edges and corners of the box and lid, with white acrylic paint. i cut all my paper pieces to size, to fit the sides of the box, the sides of the lid, and the top of the lid. i inked all the edges of the papers, and then decoupaged them onto the box. after they dried, i brushed on an additional coat of mod podge over the papers. this helps secure them even more to the box, helps them hold up to the wear and tear of being an altered project that people like to touch, and gives the papers a nice shiny look to them. you can watch a little video on the making memories blog, that shows you the basics of decoupaging the paper onto the box.

 

then i added some fun embellishments to the lid of the box. i love the little ticket stubs. i picked out four of them, and stapled them together in a row, adhering them to the lid with pop dots. that sheer polka dot ribbon is so cute, and i tied it all the way around the lid. the heart frame is made of a ceramic sort of material, and i adhered it with mini pop dots. then i simply added a heart die cut in the center, and the gold glittered "LOVE" to the die cut. and it's all ready to give to that special someone.

framed flower art tutorial

i created these framed flower art projects about 6 months ago for a tutorial on little light studio. it never quite made it up onto the site, before kayla aimee delivered her precious baby girl at just 26 weeks. she's been devoting her every second to helping her daughter fight for her life. it's an amazing story to follow, and things are looking so good for them right now. 

i figured i would go ahead and share my little tutorial here on my blog.

 

i have had these framed pieces in the girls bathroom for years. eight years, to be exact. it was time for a change. they're cute. but the colors have gotten brighter and funner in their bathroom, as they have gotten older. and i wanted something to match that. the frames are good, solid, wood frames. there are four frames in the set, and they are about 11 inches x 11 inches in size.

 

i picked out some pattern papers that match the colors in the girls bathroom. the colors here look a little light. they're actually nice, bright shades of turquoise, orange, pink, and green. i choose pretty basic patterns, that wouldn't stand out all that much. i also dug out these older chipboard flowers from fancy pants. they're large flowers, that were a perfect fit for the inside part of each frame.  

 

if you have a regular frame, you would simply open up the backing, and take out the matboard that comes in the frame. these were prints that i had purchased at a store years ago, so they had a paper backing on the frames. i sliced into the paper, and peeled it all off from the edges of the frame. then i got to the staples that hold the matboard in place. i did my best to lift them up carefully, so that i would be able to use them to hold my finished project in place when i was done.

 

i cut a piece of white cardstock, to fit the center part of my matboard. then i cut my pattern paper to fit the outside part of the matboard. to cut out the center piece of the pattern paper, i just measure how far from the edges i need to cut. so on this, my pattern paper was 10x10 inches. and i needed to go in two inches from each side. so i cut out an 8x8 piece of the pattern paper from the center. then i adhered both the pattern paper and the cardstock to the matboard. measure, trim, and glue for the other three frames :)

 

next, i picked out four different acrylic paints. one to match each of the patterned papers. i used a foam brush to paint the chipboard flowers. i didn't spend too much time on this. didn't even paint the edges of the flower petals. two coats of paint gave good coverage.

 

next up, i choose four colors of embroidery floss, to match the chipboard flowers. one shade lighter or darker than your paint works best.

 

not sure why i keep showing three of the sets. there are four total. lol!

 

then i simply wrapped the floss around the flower petals, over and over. no need to overthink it, or make it too perfect. just randomly wrap, back and forth, along each petal. until it looks good to your eye. then move on to the next petal. when i was finished, i just taped the end of the floss to the back of the flower. looking back at this pink flower, i should have wrapped it around that center part as well. same with the turquoise flower. oh well.

 

here's the orange flower.

 

i think the green flower was my favorite.

 

after i had wrapped each of the flowers with the floss, i adhered them to the coordinating matboard. i used 3-D squishy pop dots to stick them down, since they're super strong, and sort of mold over all the string to give good coverage.

 

then i cleaned the glass on each frame, added the matboard, and secured them with the staples in the back of the frame.

 

the girls bathroom is terrible for taking photos. and small. i tried, but i just couldn't get a good photo of these in the bathroom. but trust me, they're super cute in there. i hung them just like you see here. two on top, and two on the bottom. but i spaced them all about an inch apart.

this was a pretty effortless and fun project. i love when i can re-purpose things around my house, and give them new life.

photo holders: a making memories project

i had some other layouts to share, and started to type one up for you. but then i had this nagging feeling that i should only be showing christmas projects. lol! so, i came up with this one. i think i showed a quick photo of this project i created for making memories, back in july. in the summer. because that's when we all think about christmas, right? lol! figured i would re-show it, now that we're actually IN the christmas holiday.

 

i used the new making memories noel colletion to make these photo holders. i have made these before, for valentine's day. these are wooden blocks, with the curled wires already in them, all set for holding photos. i found them at michaels, for about $1.50 each.

 

i started out by painting the unfinished wood block, with brown paint. then i cut some pattern papers to size, for the front, back, and sides of the blocks. i used mod podge, to decopauge them onto the blocks. after that had dried, i added another layer of mod podge over the papers, to give the entire block a nice, shiny finish.

 

then i simply added a few embellishments to the fronts of the blocks. on two of them, i used a noel rosette. that was as easy as peeling and sticking. and they have a ton of dimension, with all the layers to them. on the third one, i layered together a few paper flowers, a glitter foam pointsetta sticker, and a snowflake brad.

 

then all you need to do is print out a few smaller photos, and stick them in the metal spiral clips up top. then set out to enjoy, with the rest of your christmas home decor :)