Happy 30th Birthday, Robbie!

Hi Everyone!

We are getting ready to celebrate Robbie's 30th birthday.  I used the We R Memory Keepers pinwheel maker to make lots of pinwheels to decorate the deck.  I love the pinwheel maker.  It's easy and I can make pinwheels that are 3" all the way up to pinwheels that are 12".   My favorite size is 6" because I can make two double pinwheels from a sheet of 12" x 12" paper.

 



I used the We R Memory Keepers banner maker to create a red, white, and blue birthday banner.  I find the banner maker a little more difficult to use than the pinwheel maker.  The triangle banners are easy, but the others are still a little tricky for me.  Yet, I pulled it off and I am thrilled with the way the banner turned out. 

 



Now for the not so much fun stuff....must finish cleaning the living room!

Have a great day!
Carol

Happy 4th of July

Hi Everyone!

It’s summer now and things are a little quieter at school so I have decided to at least attempt to post on my blog again.

I recently purchased a Lawn Fawn stamp set called “Wheelie Like You.”  I wanted to use those stamps to create a birthday card for Robbie.  I searched the Internet to see how others have used the set and came across a

video that Nicol Magouirk created on Youtube using the stamps.  She created a shaker card.  I liked her idea and decided to use it. 

Today I’ll share the 4th of July shaker card that I made using Nichol’s techniques.  I used Star Shape-abilities to cut my stars.  The stamped fireworks and sentiment are from Lawn Fawn’s “Happy 4^th of July” stamp set.  The banner is from Lawn Fawn’s “Bannerific” stamp set.  The patterned paper is from Lawn Fawn’s “Beachside” petite paper pack. 

Here’s the card.

 

 

I would have preferred to use just red, white, and blue seed beads in the shaker, but I was "too lazy" to run to the store for them.  I decided that since fireworks are all sorts of colors, it was okay to use the multi colored beads that I had.

Happy 4^th of July!

Carol

Thank you cards

Hi Everyone!

'Tis the season for thank you cards.  Thank you cards to create for gifts.  Thank you cards to create and write for gifts I received. 

I made variations of this card for the students who gave me gifts at Christmas.  The snowman stamp is from Lawn Fawn.  First I stamped and fussy cut the snowman's body.  Then I stamped and fussy cut the hat and scarf.  Most of the hats had a tiny pompom on them.  The pompom on this hat seems to have disappeared. 

This is one of my favorite cards.  I made many of them and they all look a little different simply because I changed the papers I used on each one.  I used a Nestability die to cut a circle out of the floral paper.  Then I adhered that paper to a blank card.  I used a smaller die to cut a second circle that I also adhered to the card.  The sentiment was created with a Lawn Fawn die.  I created a shadow effect by first cutting the sentiment in white and then from a patterned paper. 

Here's another card that was done the same way.

That's all for today. 
Carol

New Year's Party Favors

Hi Everyone!

It's been a very busy month, but I had a lot of fun creating Christmas cards, gift bags, gift tags, and stocking stuffers.  Crafting is most definitely addicting and even though Christmas is over I still have the urge to craft.

I wanted to create some simple party favors for the potluck luncheon we are having at work on Friday. I searched through Pinterest and Google Images, but couldn't find anything that worked for me. As I looked at the bottles of champagne and the sparkle of silver and gold an idea popped into my head. 

I went down to the basement and found tiny (just 2" tall) champagne glasses from the Dollar Tree store.  I looked through my stamps and in the Hero Arts "Celebrate Everyday" clear stamp set I found a stamp that says, "Happy New Year." 

I used a Sizzix tags die to cut some medium white tags.  I used Versamark Ink to stamp "Happy New Year" on each tag.  I used gold embossing powder to heat set each sentiment.  Then I stamped some stars on the tag and used red embossing powder to heat set them. 

I used gold and silver thin ribbons to tie the tags to the champagne glasses.  I put Hugs and Kisses candy in the glasses. 

 

 

Happy New Year!
Carol

PS  I have been sitting here looking at the favors I made.  I decided that they needed a little more sparkle so I added a thin piece of silver or gold ribbon around the top edge of each glass.  I used 1/8" Scor-tape to adhere the ribbon.  That simple addition of ribbon made the glasses even more festive!

Denami Design Faces

Hi Everyone!

I am excited about something I just made.  Snow people from Hershey Nuggets and Twix Fun Size Bars!  I saw some snowmen that were made from Hershey Nuggets on Pinterest and decided I'd make some.  While I was looking through for something to use for the snowman's eyes, nose and mouth I suddenly had an idea.  I knew that I had a Denami Design face stamp in with my Halloween stamps.  A stamp that I have used many times to stamp a face on a Denami Design pumpkin.  So I dug through my Halloween stamps, found the stamp I wanted and stamped the image onto a piece of 1" x 3" tag.  I adhered the strip of tag to a Hershey Nugget, added a hat, and my snowman was done.

The hats are fingertips snipped from dollar gloves.  I prefer the smoother "hats" to the fluffy ones and plan to pick up a few pairs of the smooth gloves. 

Well, I liked the little snowman heads, but then I thought why not make a full size little snow person.  I decided that Twix fun size bars were exactly what I needed.

Isn't she adorable!  I think I am going to package them up in sets of three. 

Here's the link to the stamp I used for the faces, right here.  Here's the link to some other adorable faces.  You have lots of great choices!

Enjoy what's left of this evening!
Carol

Gift bags Day One

Hi Everyone!

I've been giving my sisters, Paula and Pam, card sets as gifts for years.  Most of the time those gifts have arrived after their birthday or after a holiday.  Well, this year I changed things up big time.  I set a goal and I achieved it.  I am guessing that as I type this e-mail Paula's gift is arriving in Washington and Pam's is arriving in California. 

This year I didn't send them cards.  I am sure they both have a lifetime stash of them by now.  This year I made them gift bags with coordinating tags.  They can put gifts for their friends inside the bags. 

I posted a question on Facebook asking if people decorated one side or both sides of a gift bag.  Some people responded that they decorated just one side, while many others responded that they decorated both sides.  I decided to decorate just one side of all of the bags. 

I pulled out my 12" x 12" paper pads, some Martha Stewart Christmas borders, twine, and border punches and got to work.  My plan was to "dress up" the papers that I had.  My goal was to use supplies that were already in my stash.  I put a 2 to 2.5 inch header across the top of most of the bags and added a strip of a Martha Stewart border to those headers.

This was a paper from last year's Recollection's Christmas paper pad.  I added some tiny pompoms for the reindeer noses, wiggly eyes with tiny "pupils" for their eyes, bows that are from a roll of bows ribbon, and some sparkly stars that I bought at the Dollar Store years ago.  There are trees near the reindeer so I decided to add a Martha Stewart border that had trains delivering Christmas trees.  Note that the gift tag has a scrap of that train border on it. 

 

Next up a bag with a piece of holly patterned paper on it.

 



Note the holly border that coordinates with the patterned paper.  I used a Sizzix die to cut out the holly for the embellishment in the center of the bag.  The red scalloped circles and the white standard circles were cut using Nestability dies.  I used a Swiss dots embossing folder to emboss the white circles.  The holly is attached to the white circle with foam tape and the entire circle is adhered to the bag with foam tape.  The holly berries are buttons.  The holly sprig on the gift tag is a dimensional sticker.

That's it for today, but I have other bags to share another day.

Have a nice night!
Carol

Hershey's Nuggets

Hi Everyone!

If you search for "Hershey Nuggets" on Pinterest you will find a variety of adorable ideas on ways to use them to create a candy gift.  I put the 8 packages of 4 candies each that are shown below together in no time at all. 

The directions can be found at this link.  The pretzel bags that the candies are stored in were inexpensive and easy to find at Michaels in the candy making aisle.  I used some removable adhesive to adhere the candies to the paper tray.             

 

I used a Sizzix Scallop Tags Combo #2 die to cut my tags.  The sentiment was created from an Inky Antics wooden stamp, but I am guessing you have many different sentiment stamps that you could use. 

 

Have a great day!

Carol