Tea Holder WGB

I think I'm on a roll with this blogging thing this week! Ha - I shouldn't have said that, now I won't get around to it for another week, lol! Having a dark, dreary day here - it's trying to spit some snow out, but so far just enough to be a tiny bit annoying. So much for my son's hope for a snow day! Bad for picture taking though. I altered this little WGB (wooden gift bag) to use in my kitchen to hold teabags. I'm on a pretty big coffee kick lately (we finally have a Starbucks!), but do love the occasional cup of tea. My absolute favorite is from Celestial Seasonings and called Sleepytime. The box describes it as a "comforting blend of chamomile and spearmint". I love this at bedtime! I do not, however, like the box it comes in. So I thought I'd make myself something I DO like to hold my little packets of my favorite tea! I used Calcutta Gardens paper from Zsiage's Impressed With India? (see, there's that question again) line. This paper has a nice gradation in colors so I used one side (the lighter) for the front and back, then the darker side for the sides. It still felt kind of dark and I wanted to pep it up so I rubbed a pearl glaze from Making Memories over it. I overdid this just a bit, but still really like how it changed the look of the paper. Tip for the glazes - add a tiny bit at a time! It dries really quickly so while you can keep adding more, getting it toned down once you've put too much on is next to impossible. I used chipboard letters and a scroll from Zsiage covered in pearl blue Lumiere paint from Jacquard. My picture doesn't do it justice, but the pearl glaze and the pearl in the paint really do look striking together. I need to remember to pull my Lumiere paints out more often! I finished up with a few charms I had from the bowl I found in my cupboard a few weeks ago, again clipping off the hang tags. I had to fight the temptation to add ribbons to the top because I want to be able to get to my tea without getting caught up in ribbon, lol!

Love Nest Altered Mini Birdhouse

As seen in my article in the May issue of Scrapbooking.com Magazine!

Remember the cute little birdhouses I found for $1 at Michael's the other day? I finished one and now I'm so hooked! These are the perfect size for using up scraps you've got sitting around. I had been using Prima's Romantica line for a bunch of Christmas items and decided to use up some scraps for a love themed project as they were meant for and I'm just so excited at how CUTE it came out! These papers are double sided so I ended up using scraps from two different papers (sorry, I can't find the scraps that happen to include the name of the papers themselves though!). I Mod Podged them all to the house (I measured and cut these precisely - this is just too small a piece to mess with trying to sand edges on). For the roof, I cut strips of the polka dotted paper and used a little Martha Stewart (EK) cutter to give them a decorative edge. A couple extra coats of Mod Podge made the overhanging areas nice and sturdy. Then I realized I had the actual matching set of flowers to this line and started tucking them in behind the little fence to create a little garden. Then if that wasn't enough Primas, I started decorating some more with the flowers and some antique gold heart brads. Then I had to run out to Hobby Lobby and find some little birds to live in the house! I was hoping to find lovebirds but the ones in the bridal aisle were just too big so I had to find something in the miniatures section. I've only got a few more houses sitting around but I'm envisioning a little shelf with a birdhouse village all lined up, lol! Guess where I'll be going next weekend! Back to Michael's for more birdhouses! And darn it, why on earth couldn't I have done this project before the Prima DT applications were due, lol! Have you all seen the new DT, by the way? I'm so excited - there are some of my favorite designers on that list and I can't WAIT to see what they do for Prima!!! Congrats, ladies!!!

House Number Plaque

I've lived in this house for two and a half years now and suddenly USPS, UPS, and FedEx are ALL screwing up deliveries. My boxes end up several houses away, my mail next door. I've had to deliver the lady down the street's insulin to her (what if I hadn't been home!!! It has to remain refrigerated!!). So I finally decided to put up house numbers. Well, I can't possibly just use the plain, boring ones you stick or nail to the house so I decided to make my own! I got this little scroll plaque at Walmart. Painted the back and sides with Plaid paint and then Mod Podged (also from Plaid) Tantalizing Tulip paper from Zsiage's Flouristics line (I REALLY love this particular piece of paper!). I then painted some chipboard numbers from Zsiage in black and covered them in Glossy Accents. The flowers are from Prima and I used a black pen from Sakura to edge a few of them to bring in the black and give them a little more depth. I used the same pen to edge the whole plaque and give it some definition as well. Cross your fingers for me that now I can get my own mail and packages!

Spring Basket

As seen in the April/May 2008 issue of Ready Set Create E-zine. I'll put the pictures back up when allowed!

Yes, I am REALLY wishing Spring would hurry up and arrive! I'm just not a winter person. I don't like snow, despise cold, and want to open my windows back up!

This basket is one of the $1 ones I discovered the other day at Michael's. I rolled up tubes of Lucy Lines paper from the So Girly line from SEI (here's a tip - this technique does NOT lend itself well to thick, double-sided paper like this - next time I WILL go back to using a nice thin paper...) and glued them all around a basket I had already spray painted (such a time saver, especially objects with lots of weird surfaces like this) white. For reference, this particular basket took exactly one piece of paper to cover in this fashion. Because I was having such issues with the tubes staying rolled, when gluing them on, I made sure that both sides of the seam were touching the glue, then wrapped the whole thing with rubber bands to keep it in place while drying. I then wrapped some trim around the basket, ribbon around the handle, tied a few bows, and added a cute little tag from the same SEI line with a sentiment stamped on it. Stamp from the Springtime Swirls Kit from Sugarloaf (now Inque Boutique but don't know if they still carry this particular See D) and the ink is Chestnut Roan Chalk ink from Clearsnap. Trim from Making Memories, ribbon from All My Memories.

Happiness is...

Catching up with old friends over shopping! I had a wonderful time on Saturday. Last week an old scrapping buddy of mine and I re-connected through my blog (isn't the Internet a marvelous thing - we also originally met online!). I've only seen her once since I moved and not much during the last year I was living in Champaign either so I haven't had someone to crop or shop with since then! I was in town to drop off my son so we met up and she introduced me to the newest LSS in town (Blessed 2 Scrapbook on S. Neil if you're in the area!). It's been forever since I've been to an LSS!! Then we went to Michael's, who had NEW stuff in the unfinished wood aisles! Yay! Below I've taken a quick shot of some of the latest stuff I picked up (yes, of COURSE I bought multiples of them, lol). The birdhouses and basket are more of my favorite - $1 items! And the chest of drawers was just too cute to pass up.

She also gave me directions to another LSS I didn't know about on my way home (Scrapbookers Dream in St. Joe) so I'm in heaven! Looks like my bi-weekly trip to Champaign can now include more than just a Michael's stop!

I'm working on one of the little baskets right now and hope to have it posted later today (of course, I'm working on about 20 other things too so it will depend on what gets finished and dried first, of course!).

Baby Boy Frame

Well, maybe it could be used for something else, but with the "Life's Little Miracle" plaque I added along with the light blue lace, I think it's a nice little departure from the all-pastel baby boy world! The paper is from My Mind's Eye, the plaque from Making Memories, and the lace from Hirschberger. I've had all three for probably over two years. I edged the frame inside and out with Duncan's Scribbles in iridescent white mist. To adhere the lace I used the double-sided red lined tape from Provo. Also with the lace, it had been crumpled in a drawer for years - it was a mess! I don't have one of those little ribbon irons and for some reason can't remember where my little bitty iron got "organized" to. Luckily, with my naturally curly hair, I am obsessed with working against nature and have a really nice flat iron! I ran the lace through it a couple of times to work out the kinks, then again to press the edge to the flat panel, creating a nice crease so that after I adhered the edge, the flat panel stuck out just where I wanted it to.

Wooden gift bags make great storage!

Have I mentioned how addicted to these little wooden ($1) gift bags I am? Besides being a great way to package up a small gift for someone, they are also useful after the gift! I keep a nice little stockpile of these around and make them often. Most I end up keeping simply because they're a great little storage item. I keep several on my workspace at all times to keep things handy. I have one on my desk for pens and pencils too (not my good scrapbook pens, of course - those are stored on their sides, as they should be!). Plan to see some that I am making for kitchen and bath storage too soon!



For this particular WGB (I think I'll coin a new abbreviation today!), I covered it in Fossils of Kenya patterned paper from Zsiage's Out of Africa? line (yes, a lot of their paper collections have names ending with a "?" - one of these days I'll remeber to ask Dina if there's a story behind that, lol). As you may have noticed I have an affinity for all things sparky and shiny, so I decided to rub on Making Memories pearl glaze - this completely changed the look of the paper - try clicking on the picture for the large version to see the subtle shine (ok, I checked and even in the gigantic view my photo didn't pick up the pearly effect so you'll have to just trust me that it looks really great)! Then I picked out a few Bazzill Blossoms (yikes, I'm starting to run low on Prima's! I need Hobby Lobby to carry that line too!) and layered them with small felt flowers from Creative Impressions and some glittered brads from Making Memories. I painted the inside and edges of the WGB with DecoArt's metallic finish paint in Dark Patina (this color is soooo striking in peson!) and dabbled a bit more of it around the center of the felt flowers and on the ridges of the larger blossoms. To add the paint highlights to the flowers, I used my favorite all-purpose tool that EVERYONE has...my finger!

On a side note, I've noticed I have several readers from Champaign - can anyone tell me where Scrapbook Expressions (I think the new owners might have re-named it?) moved to? I was going to stop by when I was in town a few weeks ago and it was no longer in the strip mall out on the south side. There are some things I'm dying to get my hands on that I'm hoping they carry so if anyone can help me out, I'd appreciate it! Thanks!

50th Post!

Wow! Just realized my little blog has hit a milestone! It makes me glad this is a picture-heavy day, lol! This is the matching album to the wooden gift bag I posted yesterday. It's made from a wooden mini-album from Kaiser Craft (I desperately need Hobby Lobby to pick them up so I have easier access - I LOVE their stuff!!!). This went super fast because I found a quick, easy formula and stuck with it. I used the same paper I used for the gift bag (total between the two projects was under two pieces - I still have tons of scraps) and Mod Podged it onto the fronts of all the discs. I painted the backs and edges with Lipstick paint from Making Memories. All the glittered chipboard hearts are from Scrapworks and again, I have tons of these left over from the original box. This was my one attempt at proper "design" - I used the visual triangle to "frame" my pictures. The pictures themselves are printed on self-adhesive cotton from Shortcuts (now distributed by DMD). This stuff is amazing! It can go through your printer, you can stamp on it, whatever! Gorgeous texture - you end up with a canvas-like end result. I have tons and tons of this and had forgotten all about it but will try to bring it out again to show you some of the fun tecniques you can do with this. The last thing I used on every page was 3D paper paint from PSX that I outlined all the pictures with. I used a few other things on the cover and back, but will mention those near the pictures.

The whole album


The cover. I used Papier Glass Finish from Plaid inside the hearts. This is very similar to Ranger's glossy accents. The one I used happened to be a tinted version in baby blue. Which I totally did not notice for some reason (and actually thought it would eventually dry clear because I just wasn't paying attention) but it worked out nicely because of the blue in the paper...crisis averted, lol! I literally noticed this when I grabbed the bottle just now to make sure I credited the product correctly. I KNEW this product usually dried crystal clear, lol (and it does...when you don't use baby blue...). Anyways. Now that I've embarassed myself, just wanted to let you in on HOW I did the heart on the left that's hanging off the edge. Since the outline hearts are open in the middle all the way through I was kind of bummed that I wouldn't be able to fill that one in like I had the one in the middle then I got a brainstorm. I took a piece of clear packaging (in this case it was the little plastic box the Target ribbon came in) and glued it under the overhang. Once that dried, I was able to fill that heart in as well and after the glass finish (blue...) had dried, I was able to use a craft knife to cut off the excess plastic and it left the heart transparent. As always, I've uploaded these in hi-res so if you click on any picture you can get a gigantic version to see close up (eek, and any mistakes I've made). I mention this here because only close up can you see the oops moment I had when I was trimming the excess and just under the left side of the heart I cut into the dark pink stripe. I used a tiny piece of scrap to Mod Podge over it. Another crisis averted. Are you sensing a pattern? LOL!


The inside pages.

The back cover. Here I've used a chipboard coaster I've had forever from Little Davis. I love finding things I'd forgotten about just at the right moment! I surrounded it with Prima's and used the same PSX 3D paper paint as the centers. I use this a lot for flower centers because I love the way it keeps its chocolate chip shape after it's dried.

And the whole gift. You'll notice I didn't photograph any of the backs of the pages in the album, well those will be used for the sentiments for the recipient so I figured they didn't need to go on the blog. At least PART of this project will be a surprise for her, lol, since of all days, she started reading my blog yesterday. Thanks, mom, lol!

Valentine's Wooden Gift Bag

Ok, trying to break away from Christmas projects still so I started a few Valentine's Day, St. Pat's Day and Easter projects. This wooden gift bag will eventually hold a wooden mini-album I'm working on that will match. The patterned paper is from Reminisce as is the "love" block which is cut from another sheet from the same line and inked with black ink from Tsukineko. The glittered chipboard hearts are all from Scrapworks. The paint is Lipstck from Making Memories. I'm so NOT a pink kind of girl, but for some reason I just love this color! The ribbon is from these cute little $1 sets of 6 mini spools from Target. And, of course, Mod Podge from Plaid and a $1 wooden gift bag from Hobby Lobby or Michael's.

A tip about the brads along the bottom. I removed the tabs in the back using wire cutters in the middle, then used a pair of flat pliers to gently squish the remaining section of the tabs in flush with the edges of the brad. This gave me something for the adhesive (I used Aleene's Jewelry and Metal Glue from Duncan) to grab onto.

Front

Back

Sides