it's all in the details

2012 Grad Printable Kit...

Several people have emailed asking if I can revise the Grad kit from last year so I have done just that. 

 

Here are a few of the projects I made last year....again everything that says 2011 will say 2012 now in the new kit.

Enjoy!

Mother's Love Project Kit...

I am excited to share this new kit today. It has been a while since I have designed something and then been able to turn around and share it with you right away so this felt good...instant gratification!

This kit has 10 papers that are sized both 8.5x11 and 12x12. Plus three 8.5x11 pages of elements which can be used in cards, mini books, scrapbook pages and more.

 

                                                        

I will be sharing a few tutorials this week on how to get the most use out of these printable project kits so check back tomorrow! 

Truly Mine Tags and Projects...

I had a chance to get a few more projects done this weekend and today when little bit was at school so I wanted to share them with you really quickly. I created this tag set for those teacher gifts that are super fast and fun for the kids to give.

These tags would be great for teacher gifts, cards, treat bags or whatever you may be crafting right now for your sweetie!

With my first sheet (which I printed on Avery sticker paper) I decided I would use these jars from Ikea and let each child pick out a candy to fill them with for their teacher. I used my Marvy circle punch which fit the top of the jar perfectly and then put them on the top of the jars and they are ready to go! 

You could add a little ribbon or twine if you wanted but they really are cute with just the stickers attached! (I think I may swap out Jake's choice of sweet tarts for some dark chocolate when he's not looking!) Or maybe it's just me that is craving chocolate right now.

Then I wanted to make a card for each teacher to go along with the jars. I found these cool petal envelopes at Staples the other day in the clearance bin and thought they would be fun so I printed the trellis background paper that is in the Truly Mine Project set, adhered it to the back of the envelope and this is where each child will write their note to the teacher. 

Then I punched a heart from the same paper, and added a vintage bit of paper, some seam binding ribbon and did you spy the button?...that is one of the buttons from the new Wayfarer line. Just happened to match this card perfectly! All of this is attached to just the envelope so they can open it with ease.

Then this next little project was all for me! ;) I wanted something fun to put on the entry way table for valentines day so I made this art piece using the background papers. I found the frame at Ikea and spray painted it brown.

Then I inserted one of the background papers from the collection (mustard dot). Then using my heart punch I punched out hearts from various patterned papers (7 total) layered and arranged them and then stitched them directly to the paper vertically through the centers of the hearts.  

I then typed "be mine" with my vintage typewriter and made a banner to span the center heart. Took me about 20 minutes and now I have a cute art piece to display and I plan on making a banner to hang behind it tonight!

What are you creating for Valentine's Day this year?

Truly Mine Project Kit...

I have been promising you I would get the Valentine's project kit posted and I am a bit behind (sorry) but here it is! I am excited about it as it is not at all what you would think of when you think traditional valentine's day colors or images....and I like that! When I first started my design process I tried really hard to come up with something a little more traditional but then I thought...why? Why does it have to be pink, red, black or white and then I kind of did my own thing as you can see! ;)

 

As you can see I went with turquoise, coral, mustard and a mottle brown and I had a lot of fun with it. There are twenty 8x10 backgrounds included in the kit as well as one 8.5 x 11 elements page. Yesterday I printed out 10 pages and then double printed a coordinating patterned paper on the other side and went to work creating a few projects....basically just playing, and here is what I came up with:

This is what I am going to use for all of our nieces and nephews. Each will get a $5.00 bill, a Hershey bar and lollipop in these cute pockets I created. All I did was take one of the pages I double printed with my pattern of choice. Trim out a 4x6 card, fold down the top right corner to the spine of the card, adhere down. Then sew it in place around three sides of the card to form the pocket. Then I used one of the banner shapes from the elements page to stamp the appropriate name for each pocket. The fun thing is they can all look so different since I have printed out so many different patterns! I think I might use these in the kids class parties as well (minus the money of course!)
 

This sweet little card might be my favorite. I love the mix of patterns and colors. Here I have used four different papers on this one small card. (The fourth is on the inside of the card) I used seam binding ribbon, a heart punch and my favorite tag punch to make this a super fast card.

On this card I used a few of my old book pages and punched out four hearts, then stacked them one on top of another for some depth. I also dipped the top hearts edges in gold glitter. Then I added two of my elements inside the heart and I had a complete card in minutes.

I made this tri-fold card for my hubby. I love the paper that has the "love memo" in the top left hand side of the paper so I knew I wanted to incorporate that in his card. I think I will use that in cards for the kids as well...just a fun little way to say I love you! It has a box to check for "urgent" "reply" and "I love you". All I did was trim down the 8.5 x 11 sheet and then insert it into the tri-folded card and I was good to go.

 

I guess the point I am trying to make is that I am all about simplicity....four kids = not enough hours in the day. So for me if I can make a card that is fun, pretty and most of all FAST....I am one happy mama. All in all I spent about an hour printing and playing around and had a nice little pile of goodies that are hand made and beautiful if I do say so myself!

Tomorrow I am going to tackle a few jewelry projects. My daughter has requested a few necklaces for her 3 BFF's for valentine's day so I need to come up with a plan for that....I will share those soon!

Enjoy! 

New clocks and New Year's Party Gifts...

Found these new clock faces the other day treasure hunting and of course I needed to add them to my collection. It seemed the appropriate time with the new year approaching, don't you think? We are still enjoying our holiday festivities and still have one more christmas celebration to attend if you can believe that! (we both have big families) but we also have a few New Year's parties to attend so I made these today to take as little gifts for the host and I thought the kids would enjoy handing them out to our neighbors as well.

I went to Ikea and purchased the bottles. I think they were $1.69 maybe? Then I filled them with different types of beverages. Some were rasberry lemonade, some were cider. Then I used the New Year's Printable Tag Kit below and I was done. (I used a circle punch and my Martha scoring tool to finish them off) I then loaded them back in the box and now they are ready to be passed out to the kids friends when they come by or when they go to their houses to play. I also printed more to put on wine and champagne bottles for the adult friends! ;)

If you are interested in making your own New Year's treats here is the kit:

The kit includes one 8.5 x 11 printable sheet in a .pdf format that has two vertical hang tags and one horizontal banner tag that can be used on smaller bottles or cards.

Happy New Year!

Printable Cards (Great for Teacher Gifts!)...

Just a quick drive by post today as I have a mile long to-do list but I wanted to share with you this cute "Giving" Card Set. I am using them as teacher gifts and putting their gift cards inside.

Basically there are two cards that have a faux front flap closure and then I have jazzed them up a bit...do you see a trend here? I just think that is the special touch that takes them from "just a card" to a card they will remember!

Here are the two cards that come in the set:

I will have the kids sign their names to the inside when they get home but I am cranking them out today so that I can mark teacher gifts off my list today.  If I could just get my assistant who is home today to quit eating the candy canes I would be in better shape to finish the class party gifts as well! ;)

Don't forget to keep entering the giveaway here until it closes tomorrow...good luck!

Another Project Kit and a Giveaway!

***ETA: Lots of questions about the candy canes...I got mine at Walgreen's. They had a package of 40 with four different colors for $5.00. Hope this helps!***

Man it is definitely that time of year that if you blink a week has flown by, how does that happen?? Oh wait I know...we have had fundraisers, breakfast with Santa, I was lucky enough to have another visit from girlfriends and got to spend a few days with them. We finally decorated for Christmas and have been getting ready for all of the holiday fesitivities that are bearing down upon us. We have dance recitals, class parties and church activities...all of which I need to have a little something to take for each child. Not something big but just a cute little something that looks like I spent a long time on it so I came up with these gift tags that are perfect to attach to candy canes, small gift bags or treats. They can also be used as tags on packages, and/or embellishments on cards and layouts.

These are definitely geared towards kids but there are also a few that could be used for co-workers or teachers. Just a fun way to jazz up any gift! There are a total of 8 different tags in the kit.

I used these to pretty up some candy canes I bought to take to McKinley's cheernastic's holiday party. I needed 18 of them so I printed off a stack of the banner gift tags, wrapped them around a candy cane, added a small trinket and some ribbon to each and I was good to go. I glue dotted the candy canes to the front of a small hot pink notebook I found in the dollar bin at Target. They were a hit, the girls loved them!

Here a few that I made up:

This one I made for my little guy who was going with us to the party....I couldn't leave him out. And when I was picking up the candy canes these green and navy ones were too cute to pass up. I am going to use these for the boys in his class when I make these for his class party.

And now for the fun giveaway part if you have made it this far. I have had such a great time with this Martha Stewart glitter paint that I thought you guys should try it out as well. So...one lucky person will win one bottle of the silver glitter paint, the Christmas Time 2011 Project Kit, the Holiday Art Prints, and the Banner Gift Tag kit pictured above. Here are the ways you can be entered to win:

1. Leave me a comment below.
2. Blog above this giveaway. (Leave me a comment that you did.)
3. Tweet this giveaway. (Leave me a comment that you did.)
4. Facebook this giveaway. (Leave me a comment that you did.)
5. Send me a photo of anything you have created using one of my printable kits or a class you have taken from me.

You can do any of the above as many times as you want until this giveaway closes on Wednesday night (7th). I will choose a winner and announce it Thursday morning.

Good Luck!

Holiday Art Prints & Inspiration...

I just want to take a second to say thank you to each and every one of you that have supported my work here and emailed me words of encouragement, support and even requests, it means the world to me so THANK YOU!

I do have to say I have been overwhelmed with the requests I have gotten especially for the 8x10 art prints so I hope you will enjoy this new set I have created for the holidays. The set includes four different 8x10 art prints which you can see below: 

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What I really love about these are how easy they are to give as gifts. I have given them to teachers, neighbors, girlfriends and family. I have used them in table displays, in vignettes and for party decorations. They are quick and easy....just print, trim and pop into a frame and they are ready to give or display. What more can you ask for? You can also dress them up a bit if you want. It's hard for me not to add some sparkle when I have the chance, shocking I know!

Here are a few projects I have created already using these prints:

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So of course you know by now (maybe I shouldn't admit this so much) that I design a lot out of necessity. I have a friend that needs to decorate some tables for a ladies christmas luncheon at her church. She really liked the concept of my halloween art printable so she had asked several weeks ago if I could keep that in mind and help her out when it came time to decorate the tables for her event. Once I showed her the four that I had designed she chose the Giving Christmas and the Peace on Earth prints to go with her color scheme. She really enjoyed the idea of the feet on the frames like the Halloween print so off we went in search of "legs" for our frames. We wanted them to be taller than the original Tim Holtz feet as we want to put some live greenery underneath the frames as more of a centerpiece. Luckily we found these short plain wooden candlesticks at Hobby Lobby. There are 6 in a package for $2.99 and yep...you guessed it, they were 1/2 off that week. ;) Score!

After we spray painted the legs we used the Martha Stewart gold gilding paint and then applied the Martha Stewart glitter paint on top of that on the blue candlesticks only. Aren't they pretty? 

I told you I am having a bit of a love affair with these paints! ;) After the legs were hot glued on the frames and the print was trimmed down and secured in the frame we added a gold star ornament and a mini gold bell. Then to finish it off we added some green seam binding ribbon dipped in the gold gilding and sprinkled with polyflake glitter.

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And here is the Peace on Earth print. For continuity we used the same frame as the Giving Christmas print as well as the same legs just painted in a different color. On this print we added a few Bazzill self adhesive pearls for just a bit of sparkle. They both turned out really nice and they are all ready to go and be displayed at the luncheon next week!

And yes you guessed it...once she showed the rest of the committee her decorations for the women's luncheon they asked if they could use the Wise Men print for the men's luncheon. ;) I wanted to keep the embellishments on this frame super simple since the boys probably wouldn't notice too much detail anyway (right ladies?) So when we went back to HL I found these frames that had about a 1/2 lip that were almost like a shadow box. I thought I might hang some thin ornaments inside which would still look great but instead I bought some ornament shaped stickers that I thought I would use inside. (Quite by accident) I stuck some ornament shaped stickers to the inside of the glass and then removed them when I didn't like the way they looked. Then I filled the frame with about 1/2" of german glass glitter and shook it across the glass where the stickers had been and surprisingly it stuck and made the ornament shape on the glass. I then let the excess fall to the bottom of the frame. It also looks a bit like sand across the bottom of the frame. It's a bit hard to get the full effect without seeing it in person.

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Can you see the faint impression on the bottom right hand corner of the glass? It is an ornament shape. When you look at the frame straight on you can really see the shadow of the ornament shape on the art print. It was one of those crazy happy accidents! 

There is one last print that I haven't photographed a project with yet but I will be showing you more projects throughout the week using the Christmas Time 2011 Project Kit as well as the Holiday Art Prints.

I will also be hosting a fun giveaway later in the week....finalizing the details later today and will announce it by the end of the week.

Enjoy!

My December Daily....

all complete and ready to go!

I have always wanted to participate in Ali's December Daily but have never gotten my stuff together and made it happen. I was determined this year though so with a Saturday to myself this weekend I knew I had a total of 7 hours to make it happen! I spent a little prep time throughout the week designing the playing card numbers that I had envisioned and papers in the color scheme I wanted and then gathered all of my embellishments. This way I would have everything ready when I had an empty house. Can you tell I don't have that very often so I had to make every moment count?!

Here are a few things I started with:

I designed eight papers in a very neutral black, cream, and greige color scheme as well as 28 playing cards, numbers 1-25 and then three blank cards. Then throughout the week I gathered things that I felt would work within this color scheme and threw them in a bowl on my table so that I would be ready to create!

First thing Saturday morning I hit Hobby Lobby to find an album to house my project in. I wanted something premade and easy. I could have made a junk journal or my own mini book but I truly did want something easy that I could finish in a day so I opted for a premade album. I scored at Hobby Lobby and found a paper studio leather 8x8 album in black that was on sale for 40% off so it ended up being $8.00 and had 20 page protectors inside.

Here is what I came up with:

 

I know that I need to be realistic with myself about this project and in order for me to stick with it and actually document something each day some might only be a photo or some might be ticket stubs or even receipts for gift purchases made that day. I am ok with that though so an 8x8 album was a perfect size for me. Not too overwhelming but large enough to add photos if I have them.

I used some of my new favorite products which I will post more details about throughout the week. Here is the kit if you are interested in making your own. The playing cards are a fun size and I printed them out in varying sizes for my completed book. 

 

What are you creating this week? Or are you just frantically cleaning and preparing for Thanksgiving? I am taking the easy way out this year and we are all going to descend upon my sister-in-law's home...she is a gourmet cook so there will be great food and no mess to clean up. Perfect!

Count Your Blessings Project Kit...

So as I mentioned yesterday I also created a new project kit which has 11 background papers, 2 embellishment pages and 1 inspiration sheet that has detailed project photos of the mini book I created that I am calling "Count Your Blessings". Let's take a closer look at all the pieces of the kit:

 

And this is the mini book I created with it:

I am going to have everyone in our family write one thing they are thankful for each day of November leading up to Thanksgiving Day and then we will share some of them before dinner that night. The numbers in the kit go from 1-31 but in my book I only included 28 so that it ended on Thanksgiving Day. I wanted you to be able to use this for other purposes though!

I made lots of interactive pages that flip up so that we can write inside them.

I sewed in pockets and places to tuck more pieces of paper inside.

I added some pages from my vintage stash like this sheet music that are a bit unexpected. I also found these really cool bank ledger pages the other day that say "Share" at the top so I of course had to use a few of those!

I enlarged embellishments for stand alone pages and printed on swiss dot cardstock for added texture.

Played with some fun techniques on the cover. (That is the Distress Clear Rock Candy on one of the embellishments from the kit.)

Overall I LOVE the way it turned out and I can't wait to see what everyone writes and their faces when we share them at dinner time.

If you are interested in purchasing the printable kit just use the buy now button at the top of this post and once I receive payment I will email you the download link as soon as I can.

I also created the 8x10 art prints for November that I have been getting emails about...so you can replace your Haunted Art Print on November 1st! ;) This time I created two different ones and I am packaging them together as a set. I loved the pattern papers in this kit so much that I knew I wanted to keep these simple.

Here is a little preview of both:

The price for this kit which includes both prints is $3.98.

I will be giving away some fun things this week as well as showing you projects that were completed with these kits as well as the Haunted Kits so check back for those tomorrow!