Christmas Countdown 2007

Last year I made a calendar that held chocolate coins and we counted down from the 1st of Dec until Christmas. I wanted to make something different this year, but I procrastinated so it will be the 12 days of Christmas. I stayed up late last night covering little paper mache boxes with pattern paper and ribbon. The pictures on top of the box are rub ons and I used my Cricut to cut the numbers. Each box holds a chocolaty treat.

Pumpkins!

Cameron is off on her first kindergarten field trip this morning. She is on her way to the Pumpkin Patch. It's very cloudy and wet, but the rain has stopped. I think it is going to be very muddy there though. She was real excited this morning, more so about getting to ride the school bus there. It's about a 40 minute drive so she will have lots of time on the bus.

She normally takes a lunch box to school, but because they will be eating at the PP they wanted the kids to bring paper bags so everything can be thrown away. Well you know me, plain is boring and what can be more plain than a brown paper sack. So I prettied it up with some happy pumpkins. I have had a big chunky foam pumpkin stamp for a couple years that I bought for .10 cents. I decided to finally use it with some MM acrylic paint and stamped pumpkins on the front and back of the bag.

Vertical Page Holder

Over the weekend I came across a scrappers blog that was showcasing this really cool scrapbook page hanger. After clicking through a few links I found the source of these nifty little contraptions. Unfortunately I was not as impressed with the $16.00 price tag on them not to mention the arm and leg those online stores usually charge for shipping.

So being that hubby is a builder by profession, I showed him a picture and asked him if he though I could build one myself. 5 seconds later we were in the car on our way to Home Depot for some wood, screws and a fancy drill bit.

Hubby made the first one and I was so thrilled with it that he showed me how to cut all the wood and drill all the pieces myself so that I could make as many as I wanted. I was using the hacksaw and power tools and everything, it was great!

So here is what we made. Doesn't look all that exciting yet, right?

This is what the final product looks like

It holds a 6x6 page protector using 2 1 inch binder rings. The 1 inch is all I had, but I think 1 1/2 inch would work better. It will hold several page protectors so it can be used as an album that people can flip through. Or for a calendar like I am using this one for. Or you could just display one layout at a time. I decorated mine by painting the edges of the wood and then adhering paper to the top of the base and sides of the posts using modge podge. I also attached paper to the dowel using modge podge as well.

Since I know how to make these on my own, I will be making them to sell to anyone who would like one to decorate them self. They will be $10.00 each and come in plain wood format (like the first picture shown above). It will include the 4 screws for the posts and (2) 1 1/2" binder rings, page protectors are not included. Shipping will be extra.

All the pieces do come apart making it easy to decorate however you want. You just need a screwdriver.

Also, they come with plain rectangle bases like you see in the first picture. The one I decorated has a decorative edge. If you wish to have the decorative edge it will be $1.00 more. Here is a close up of the decorative edge.

These will make awesome gifts!!

A Few Cards

I needed a couple thank you cards and a baby card, but I wasn't feeling super crafty today. I decided to use some paper from my DCWV kids pack and whip some up real quick. I love the glitter on these papers. It might be hard to see in the picture.

Treat Projects

This is one of the projects I demonstrated last weekend at workshop.

Stampin' Up! © 1990-2007

Stamps: Double Line Doodles
Paper: Wild Wasabi, Certainly Celery Print DS paper
Ink: Wild Wasabi
Other: Small zipper baggie, silver eyelet, scallop punch, Hershey Kisses

I was planning to make this little acetate box of treats for Cameron's class for her birthday. After completing one and handling it a bit I decided it wasn't sturdy enough. These treats would go right to the kids backpacks and I didn't think they would make it home in one piece so I scrapped the idea.

Stampin' Up! © 1990-2007

Stamps: Very Punny, Pick A Petal

Paper: Basic Black, Whisper White

Ink: Basic Black

Other: Transparency, Scallop Punch, Circle Punch, Ribbon, Hole Punch, Hershey Kisses

This is what I decided to make instead. Obviously much more durable.

Stampin' Up! © 1990-2007

Stamps: Very Punny

Paper: Real Red, Basic Black, Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Green Galore, Pixie Pink, Med. Blue, Lt. Pink

Ink: Basic Black

Other: Scallop Punch, Circle Punch, Small Zipper baggie, Eyelets, Hershey Kisses

For The Bride

We were up and moving early this morning and now I am trying to kill some time before my SU party. This card design is by Janine Tinklenberg.

The torso and bottom of dress where made using her patterns. She used the heart from the SU Daisy Crazy set to make the bodice. I don't have that set so I measured the width and length of the torso and made a heart shape in a print shop program.

The bouquet is the SU circle scallop punch with holes punched around the edge with a 1/8th hole punch. The flower stamp for the bouquet is from the SU Simply Said set.

For the necklace I strung tiny white pearl seed beads onto some thin wire and attached the wire to the back of the bashful blue cardstock.

There is a a piece of white tulle attached to the bottom half of the gown which was a P.I.T.A to attach.

The bodice has opal glitter glue on it for a little sparkle.

Now I just need a bride to give it to.

I Have Been Stamping

I finally felt like going back in my scrap room and doing something productive in it. I had to get some projects together for a SU workshop this weekend and it kind of put me back in the mood. I don't want to show any of the projects we will be doing tomorrow, but here are two cards I made to add to my sample box.

Stampin’ Up! © 1990-2007

Stamps: Garden Whimsy
Paper: Purely Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi, Groovy Guava, Whisper White
Ink: Basic Black, Purely Pomegranate, Groovy Guava
Other: Mat Pack (paper piercing), scalloped circle punch (heart shaped corner top left)

CASED from Mary Brown

Stampin’ Up! © 1990-2007

Stamps: Pick A Petal, Sincere Salutations
Paper: Basic Black, River Rock, Purely Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi, Whisper White, Groovy Guava
Ink: Basic Black, Purely Pomegranate
Other: Mat Pack

I have also been working on a little prototype of a treat box I am thinking about making for Cam's class for her birthday. I will show that after I play with it some more.

Luggage Tags

Cameron and I will be on our way to the airport by 5am tomorrow! I did most of the packing last night and picked up a few things at the store this morning. Since I was ahead of schedule (I usually pack the day before I leave) I decided to whip up some luggage tags for our suitcases.

I had bought a couple 10 packs of badge tags at the dollar store several months ago and that is what I used to make these. I think they worked perfectly. The holes are already in the top and I tied ribbon through them. Our full address is on the tags, but I photo shoped them out for posting purposes. Here is one side:



This is the other side. I attached them to the suitcase handles using book rings.

Weekend Stamp Projects And A Tip

I was feeling pretty good today so I managed to get in my scrap room and do a little stamping.

A while back I was at AC Moore and saw these rulers for $1.00 and said to myself "I bet I could stamp that". If you are a stamper I am sure you can relate to that phrase while looking at something. LOL I bought just one (I will now be going back for more) and this is what I did to it. (Try clicking on the picture to make it bigger for a better view). The center strip on the ruler that I stamped is wood. I used black and red StazOn ink to stamp the images. Then I figured coloring in the flowers would be best with sharpie markers, but I didn't care for the darkness of the ink on the ruler. So I went with colored pencils. It can be a little tricky because of the grain of the wood, but I think it came nice. If I were going to use this ruler I would probably coat the wood with a layer of Mod Podge. The stamp sets used were double line doodles and Garden Whimsy, from the new Stampin Up catalog.

The other thing I played around with is this cute Stampin Up jumbo wheel called Dilly Dally Party. Yep, I said wheel, do you see it? Here is a hint: It is no longer on a wheel. LOL A few weeks ago a fellow Stampin Up Demonstrator, Martha, brought up a question that involved removing the rubber from the wheels and mounting them on blocks of wood. When I read that it was a total OH MY GOSH, WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA THAT IS kind of moment for me. I hate the wheels!! Okay, maybe it is fear and not so much hate, but either way I have been keeping my distance from those pesky wheels. However this year there are so many in the catalog that I would love to have...... and now I can.

Because the rubber is more tacky on the wheel rather than stuck tight it is easy to remove.

Just locate the seam on the rubber and carefully cut it with a sharp craft blade. Get a block of wood that is a little bigger than the stamp - The one above is a jumbo wheel and measures 6 3/4" long by about 2" wide. My husband had a piece of scrap wood about 3/4 of an inch thick that he cut down and sanded real nice for me. To attach it to the wood you could use double sided foam like that you find on most wood mounted stamps. If you don't have that I suppose you could glue the rubber to some craft foam and then adhere it to the wood, or just glue it straight to the wood if you wanted.

Hubby has some real strong double sided foam tape that he used to adhere mine to the wood. And there you have it. If I had thought about it I would have stamped the image on the wood with StazOn ink before mounting it and then seal it so that I had a picture reference on the wood. I will do that on the next ones and will probably just stamp a piece of paper and attach it with Mod Podge.

Now of course mounting all the wheel stamps like this is not necessary like for example Hot To Dot or Watercolor Joy. Unless you want some of the patterns to be in nice straight lines. For me, mounting the wheels on blocks are good for ones like Neighborhood and Spooky Skyline or Daisy Fields.

So if you are like me and just can't seem to get the wheels to roll right on your paper, this is a great solution!!! Thanks Martha!

Stamped Clock

I bought a wooden clock in the dollar spot at Target many months ago and decided to do something with it today.






I forgot to take a before pic, but the clock is wooden and it was painted baby blue with a light yellow moon and stars painted on it. I traced the clock onto white card stock and stamped on it. I didn't feel like messing with paint and I didn't want to use scrapbook paper, I wanted it stamped.



The bugs and saying are from Inky Antics. The flowers are Got Flowers. I colored it with prisma pencils and odorless mineral spirits.

Cards, Dominoes, Folding

Hubby went with friends to see the new Transformers movie tonight and the little one passed out early, so I retreated to my scrap room.

The ladybug wings were made with a petal from the pick a petal set. I have seen this done a lot lately so I tried my hand at it. I think it came out cute.

Stampin' Up! ® 1990-2007

Stamps: Pick A Petal, Curvy Verses
Paper: Basic Black, Whisper White
Ink: Real Red, Yo Yo Yellow, Close To Cocoa, Basic Black
Other: Black journal pen, Circle Punch



This next card I CASED from Shauna Cundick. Her stripes look much better than mine. I just loved the colors on it.

Stampin' Up! ® 1990-2007

Stamps: Doodle This
Paper: Real Red, So Saffron, Almost Amethyst, Certainly Celery
Ink: Basic Black
Other: Certainly Celery grosgrain ribbon

These are little dominoes I stamped. They caught a glare from the flash so they look a little fuzzy. Stamping on domino's is on my list of things to do so I did it. These are really small dominoes and I think they would make good pins.

Stampin' Up! ® 1990-2007

Stamps: Very Punny

Ink: Purple, Blue, Black Stazon
Other: Permanent markers and a sanding block to sand the dominoes a little before stamping

And lastly is a card that isn't done yet. I got tired of looking at it trying to figure out what to do so I will come back to it another time. This was paper folding with the skirt and shirt. Pretty fun, but I needed to be a little gentler when using my scoring blade. The paper is thin and I cut through it a few times on the ends.

Stained Glass

A few nights ago I had a bit of insomnia at 4 in the morning so I decided to try the stained glass technique I posted about last Tuesday and made a very plain card.

I really need to take my pictures in a better light. I used white craft ink to stamp the image and then used crystal clear embossing powder.

Invitations Finished

I finished up the last of the invitations for my grandma's surprise 80th birthday party. All 40 are stuffed in envelopes and ready to go for Tuesday.

End Of School Projects

Here are the cards and a teachers gift I was up so late working on last night. Both of the cards were ideas I found in the recent issue of Paper Crafts Magazine. I made the crossword using Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and did the handwriting paper in a print shop program.


This little plant idea was also in the same Paper Crafts issue. I made the little sign with black cardstock mounted on tan cardstock and the writing was just done with a white colored pencil to look like a chalkboard. It is attached to a red pencil and stuck in the plant. I used some doodlebug stickers to put the teachers names on them.

I made 16 of these cards for the kids in the class. The girls got a card with 2 girls stamped on it and the boys got one with a girl and a boy. I love this stamp set by Stampin Up! called crayon kids. It is a retired set and I was able to purchase it from someone online a few months ago. It is such a cute set.

Weekend Projects

The weekend was pretty busy with our yard sale on Saturday (great success!!) and then continuing to clean out and pack up the house the rest of the weekend. My niece has a birthday this week so I made her a crayon roll and tissue holder (my 2 newest sewing projects).

I put together a little purse card that will hold a gift certificate for Libby Lu (it slides into the long window punch)

Suprise Invitations

I am making about 30 if these invites for my grandmother's 80th birthday party. Shhh, it's a surprise.

The paper looks bright purple on my screen, but it's elegant eggplant which I have become quite fond of lately. The paper is stamped a french script stamp (non SU) in silver ink. Velum, black square brads, paper flowers with mini silver brads and black photo mounts were also used.

The hardest part of this card was the photoshop work I had to do to the picture. The first picture is how it originally looked. Not the best photoshop job, but I think it works.

Some Cards

The swap theme for this Saturdays demo meeting is 'masculine'. I have the hardest time coming up with cards for men, so I am hoping to get a lot of ideas from this swap. This is the card I made for the swap.
Stampin’ Up! © 1990-2007
Stamps: Polka Dot & Paisleys, Fishy Friends, Warmest Regards
Ink: Real Red, Basic Black
Paper: Real Red, Whisper White, Basic Black,
Other: Silver Eyelets, Crimper, Color Pencil

This is a card I demoed a couple weeks ago that I thought would make a great springtime card or a baby card.

Stampin’ Up! © 1990-2007

Stamps: Polka Dot &Paisleys

Ink: Cool Caribbean, Basic Back

Paper: Bashful Blue, Pretty In Pink, Whisper White, Barely Banana

Other: Large Oval Punch, Slit Punch (for ticket corners)

More Christmas Crafting

Now that these gifts have been given, I can show them. :o) These are items I made for my 3 friends. We had a lovely dinner this evening at Carrabba's and exchanged gifts and ornaments.

These are wooden boxes I painted. The lettering on the top are cut outs from the cricut that are mod podged on the box. I added scrapbooking rub ons and painted little dots around the rub ons. It's intended to hold money (stash) for scrapbook and stamping supplies, but it can hold whatever they want it to hold. I put a Target gift card inside to get the money stash started. LOL

These are giant candy bars that I wrapped with pattern paper and added a funny poem about it being Christmas Fudge. I got the idea from a website.

I like this little Rudolf. Another cut out from the cricut that I chalked and added to a card that I stamped snowflakes on in white craft ink.