"Two Months Old" Layout

This is a "lift" challenge that I undertook- a little out of my comfort zone- trying to coordinate at least 3 different patterned papers. I tried flocking for the very first time on the letters and the flourishes- I just sprinkled the flocking over the wet paint (I painted the chipboard), then tapped off the excess and poured it back into the bottle. I used Martha Stewart's flocking- individual bottles at Michael's- I think I like that better than buying a pack of them with colors I'll never use. I hand stitched around the vellum squares since I don't have any vellum adhesive and my regular stuff will show through otherwise with vellum. I also handstitched around the white mat- inking the white paper slightly with pink ink, then distressed the pink double matting. I like how (to me at least) it kind of looks similar to the texture of the pink blanket. I used handstitching on the center of the flower too- stitching more on vellum. The little pink acrylic half-round I found at Craft Warehouse- a good size bag of them which I shared with some scrapbooking buddies of mine. The little felt hearts- I cut out of felt and stitched to mimic the arrow point- and I used a glass to trace little stitch lines to follow with more hand stitching. If you have the chance to try flocking- I recommend it, it's a lot of fun and adds more texture to anything you use it on. :)

Mini Magnetic Memo/Picture Boards

This little project idea came out of the bigger memo board I did recently. In our search for an adequately sized memo board, we had to use two 8 x 12 metal roofing shingles and put them together and stabilize them. Well, this is what only one of those roofing shingles looks like by itself when it's covered. Sixty three cents at Lowe's provided me a metal roofing shingle which I covered with scrapbooking paper (using spray adhesive to adhere). I used my Cropadile to punch holes for the hanger, but you could use a drill. Then I used a glue gun to put the ribbon on. This is a very basic version, you could add more detail and/or personalize it, but I'll be working on approximately 30 of them for childcare worker gifts for our MOPS group at church, so I can't go overboard time and detail wise. I used the flat bottomed glass pebbles that you can find in a floral section- I bought mine at the Dollar Store- the smallest size of them that would work. I then used leftover paper, traced around what I wanted under the glass and glued it on with Aleene's Paper Glaze- which I found at Michael's arts and crafts store (about $4.50 ). A little goes a very long way. After I glued the paper to the bottom of the glass pebbles, I used a hot glue gun to glue the magnets on the backs. At Craft Warehouse, they have bigger flat bottomed glass pieces that you can cut out pictures or cute paper, etc. and glue on the glass pebbles. I believe they use Diamond Glaze to glue the paper onto the glass pebble, and E600 glue (comes in a silver tube) to glue the magnets on. My experience with using the hot glue gun has been a good one, so if you have a glue gun and don't want to spend more on glue, then by all means use what you have. I hope this gave you a fun idea for teacher gifts or whomever else you'd like to give something fun to.

"Brotherly Love" Layout

This a layout I made as a gift for one of my friends- I've been working on a mini album for her with pictures of her and her boys in it, and had extra pictures left over. I'm still working on the album, but I thought it would be fun to incorporate these "brother" pictures into a layout with the same papers. I hand stitched around the pictures (before I matted them), and then stitched around the papers of the layout. I really like the effect of the stitching- it's my newest "ooh I like this" technique. I painted brown on the chipboard and used crackling medium on it, then painted the top color of paint over it when the crackling medium was tacky. I added Aleene's Paper Glaze over the top of the chipboard when dry to add that glossy look, then used stick on pearls for a finishing touch. I can't believe I've gotten more than one layout done in less than 2 weeks, I'm usually pretty few and far between.

Easter Sunday 2008 Layout

This layout was based on a sketch challenge in a super inspiring scrapbooking group on Cafemom- Julie, you and your scrappy ladies ROCK! Part of the challenge was to use the sketch, but to also incorporate some felt on the layout, in addition to some hand stitching. This was the first time I've used stitching on a layout, and I have to say that I am HOOKED on it now. For whatever reason, there is something calming and therapeutic with the stitching- now I'm just talking the basic stitch (not fancy embroidery), for the record- THAT would not be calming to me... :) Anyhow, I stitched around the pictures before I matted them- I used a single strand of embroidery floss for that. I stitched around other various aspects of the layout too, with more than one strand. I used my edge distresser (oh my, how I love my edge distresser! thanks to my best buddy Katherine for giving it to me- I have used it SO much! ). The distressed edges really soften up the look of the layout. Here's a secret- the paper actually says "growing boy" along the top of some of the leaves of the flowers. I used more stitching along those areas to hide it, because the paper and the floss and pictures all coordinated so well, and I couldn't find anything else suitable- so I improvised... I bought 2 sheets of the flower paper, so I cut some of the flowers out and used pop up dots to raise them out of the background to add depth. I then stickled the centers of them. I cut out more flowers and put them along the bottom of the pictures with rhinestones and buttons that coordinated. And then there's the felt- my first time working with it. To make the scallops, I used my corner rounder punch on a piece of paper to make it scalloped and then used it as template with a little bit of dry adhesive to stick the paper to the felt and cut around it . All I had to do was remove the paper and there you have it. I used beads that coordinated with the colors and sewed them on the felt, and I stitched around the border of the scallops with coordinating embroidery floss. It was really fun to do. I have to say that I'm really pleased with this layout- and that doesn't happen too often for me.

Magnetic Memo Boards ( MOPS version)

These are variations on the metal magnetic memo boards I've done before. This time we couldn't find the 12 x 12 metal sheets at Craft Warehouse (of course they have them there now when we don't need them anymore.. :) ) Anyhow, we improvised and found 8 x 12 inch galvanized metal roofing shingles from the roofing section in Lowe's- 63 cents each, Home Depot was thirty cents more, but still less than a dollar. For these I taped them together and then glued some foam core board on the back with spray adhesive for stability- this gave us a 12 x 16 inch memo board. I used my Cropadile to make holes for the handle. It took a full 12 inch sheet of paper plus a section of another (4 inches) to cover the board. I actually like how these look with coordinating paper. I used spray adhesive to adhere the paper to the metal board too. We used glue guns to glue the ribbon, but I originally used Terrifically Tacky Tape by Provocraft ( a red line tape), double sided and super tacky. We then made magnets with the glass pebbles that you can find in the floral section in the craft store ( I got ours at the Dollar Store- big savings there! ), you can also find bigger ones which give you more versatility. I used Aleene's Paper Glaze to glue paper to the glass pebble, then used hot glue to glue a magnet on the back. I also sacrificed our Scrabble game for the tiles and hot glued magnets to the back of those. The mini bulldog clip adds an extra way to hold something on the board too. I plan on using the single 8 x 12 metal sheets to make mini magnetic boards for pictures of quick notes for Christmas gifts this year, and make some cute magnets for them. Very easy and cute gift to make- especially the mini version of it.

MOPS centerpieces

It's that time of year again- time for our MOPS (Mothers of PreSchoolers) group to start up, and once again, I got to have fun working on the centerpieces. They were really a collaboration of ideas that once put all together, came out to something we're all pretty happy with. We have 6 tables, and each is a different "color"- which is why the centerpieces are the colors they are- to match the table's color theme. This year's theme for MOPS is "where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I with them". Believe it or not, these started as a pencil box with only one side to it (the house shape). I traced another house side out of chipboard to match up on the other side so no matter where you sat at the table, you'd get a nice view of the centerpiece. I put floral foam in the box and we made picture holders ( my favorite part! ) out of 20 gauge stem wire. I bought packages of it at Jo-Ann's for a couple of dollars, I think they had 20 to a package. We used needle nosed pliers to wrap one of the ends of the wire around the pliers 2-3 times- which made that spiral to hold the pictures. We then just gently wrapped the stem wire around our finger once in a couple of places along the wire, making pretty little loops. To coordinate further with the table color, we wired coordinating colored beads on a few of the loops. They turned out so cute, really fun and easy (and FAST!) to make- you could make your own and put in one of those pretty metal tins with floral foam in it and cover the top with shredded paper to hide the foam, and give as a gift- or make for yourself. In our centerpieces, we printed out pictures of the ladies' families to put in the holders for each table. All this from a humble pencil box! Maybe I'll show a little how to with pictures of making the picture holders- I know that I like pictures to go along with written directions.