Very Excited to Announce ...

I made the design team at Let's Get Sketchy! Woot woot!!

That's it. That's all I wanted to say. Look for my first layout on the LGS blog on Monday September 3rd.

Thanks everyone! Have a great Wednesday!!

Thank You Notes in a Box

Inspired by the easy creativity of my Upline Sandra I tried my hand and making a box to contain a set of Thank You notes I had made for a friend. It was surprisingly easy! You know that adage "measure twice, cut once"? REALLY important as it turns out!! LOL! The first box I made was too narrow but ... c'est la vie! Next one was perfect.

I used the new Natural Composition Specialty paper (although I forgot to get a picture of it for you!) - this one ...

It worked out better than I'd anticipated. This paper is thicker than most of our card stock and is easily sturdy enough for box making.

To keep the cards from falling out of the box I simply wrapped a strip of Very Vanilla card stock around it and embellished it as you see.

The notes themselves are super simple but that's really all you need, right?

Here are close ups of them all.

Thanks for stopping by. I'm thinking this might make a good class - what do you think? Speaking of classes have you seen my new Christmas class yet? Click on the picture below to be taken to my Eventbrite site for all the details.

Here are your links for products used in today's project:

Natural Compositions Specialty Designer Series Paper

Whisper White Note Cards & Envelopes

Comfort Cafe Designer Series Paper

Decorative Label Punch

2-1/2" Circle Punch

Blossom Punch

Delicate Doilies Sizzlits Die

Sympathy Card

A friend of mine recently suffered the loss of BOTH her parents within a few weeks of each other. This is the card I made for her.

Here are your links to the products used today:

Twitterpated Designer Series Paper

Word Play stamp set

Labels Collection Framelits Dies

Very Vanilla 1/8inch Taffeta Ribbon

Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents

Something Fun for my Scrap Room

One of the projects I did last week allowed me to get my hands messy - more than usual that is! A long time ago I purchased a couple of simple wooded initials from Michael's with the intention of covering them with paper and hanging them in my scrap room. But they have languished in a plastic bag ... until last week!

I forgot to take a picture of what it looked like initially (pun intended!!) but just try to picture it as a plain wooden letter A with a white painted finish.

Got that image in your head?

Great, because NOW it looks like this ...

There are two layers of paper on this but you can only see the top layer. When I first started I was kind of just playing so really didn't know where things would end up. I figured a base of some First Edition Specialty  DSP would be a good base to build on. Then I ended up covering it all up with one of the patterns from Comfort Cafe DSP. The sides still show the First Edition paper - under the ribbon. 

As decoration I cut out lots of butterflies using my Beautiful Butterflies Die for the Bigshot. The antennae are made out of a small piece of black floss (from my stash) hot glued into place. A couple of rhinestones finish them off.

The sentiments are by Ali Edwards for Technique Tuesday.

I used phrases that match my crafting philosophy.

A word about the ribbon. The dark orange colour in the paper is Cajun Craze - a wonderful deep brownish-orange (a close match to my wall colour - see below) but I did not have any ribbon in this colour. What's a perfectionist girl to do? Take some simple white grosgrain ribbon from her stash and rub it all over with Cajun Craze ink of course! Note to self: wait several hours before tying and gluing it down so the ink has sufficient time to dry!!

Here it is on my wall. A temporary position to be sure but I love how it compliments the paint colour. I have many ideas percolating on how I can change my Scrap room/Office around so once that happens I'll move it to a more prominent spot and show you pictures.

Here are your links for Stampin' Up! products used on today's project:

First Edition Specialty Designer Series Paper

Comfort Cafe Designer Series Paper

Beautiful Butterflies Stampin' Up! Bigz Die

Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents

New Class - Christmas Ornament Keepsake Box and Card Set

I am VERY excited to be able to offer this class to you. My upline Sandra created this gorgeous Christmas ornament shaped box with 12 matching cards and kindly sent me the instructions on how to make it.

Is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen? 

Each box holds 12 cards and envelopes. 

12 beautiful Christmas cards - 4 each of 3 designs - with matching envelopes. 

Do you want to learn how to make them?

I will be offering this class once a month starting Saturday September 15th 5:00PM - 10:00PM. Please visit my Eventbrite site for additional dates (subject to change) and to register. The cost is $20.00 which includes the Instruction Sheet, all materials needed, access to my stamps, inks and cutting tools plus snacks and beverages. This would make a wonderful gift (teachers, hostesses, Secret Santas, etc) or an equally lovely home decor item if you prefer to use and send the cards yourself. 

I hope you'll join me in! If you'd like a private class at YOUR home rather than mine, please contact me to set that up. I think this would be a great way to spend a few hours with your girl friends getting in the Christmas Spirit!

Anniversary Card

I have so many projects I've been working on that I need to share with you! Be sure to check in this week as  I post them.

First up is the card I made for my husband. Yesterday was our 10th Wedding Anniversary so this is what I whipped up for him. Not the most masculine card but very personal.

Using Fan Fair DSP I cut a section of the map print that has Europe on it (we went there on our Honeymoon) to use as my base on a Riding Hood Red card blank. Then from the tags and such paper I cut the '2 OF A KIND' tag and adhered it a bit askew. Also from that sheet I cut the numbers 1 and 0 - for our 10th Anniversary. They didn't stand out enough at first so I carefully traced around them with my Island Indigo Stampin' Write marker. Finally I used the Eiffel Tower image and AMOUR stamps from Artistic Etchings and the "happy I do day" sentiment from Word Play.

Easy Peasy! Thanks for checking me out. I'd love for you to leave a comment and tell me what you think. Masculine enough? No complaints from my husband but ... no comments of any kind actually so ... ah well. I like it and that's what matters, right? LOL!

Here are your links for Stampin' Up! products used today:

Fan Fair Designer Series Paper
Artistic Etchings stamp set
Word Play stamp set
Riding Hood Red 8-1/2" x 11" card stock (a really awesome red!!)
Stampin' Write markers - 2011 - 2013 In Color Set

Using Fabric on Your Cards and Layouts

Hi there! If you've jumped over here from the Practical Scrappers blog then Welcome! I'm so happy to see you!! Today I am talking about using fabric on your projects and I'm sharing a number of ways in which I have done just that recently.


Fabric is a pretty hot trend in the paper crafting world right now and there are many types of fabric you can add to your cards and layouts. Some have been around for ages - think ribbon and lace - and some are fairly new - fabric paper for example. Today I want to show you how to take ordinary pieces of cotton fabric and transform them!

First let's make some embellishments out of fabric like I did here on these two cards.

Both these flowers were made using a piece of cotton fabric and a sheet of Multipurpose Adhesive for the Big Shot. Let me show you how I made them.

1. This is the Big Shot Multipurpose Adhesive Sheet as sold by Stampin' Up (see below for links). It comes 12 sheets to a pack and each sheet is 12"x12" so you can make TONS of projects from one pack. And they're not just for fabric, that's just what I'm showing you today. In fact, Stampin' Up also sells adhesive rolls specifically for fabric but since the Multipurpose sheets are great for paper too, I think they are a better deal for layout makers like myself.

2. Lay your fabric on your work surface face down (TIP: iron it first!! learned the hard way that those creases don't magically come out when you lay the adhesive sheet on top of them!) Peel off one corner of the adhesive sheet, turn it over and stick it down onto your fabric.

3. Slowly pull back the rest of the adhesive backing using a bone folder to keep it as straight and crease free as possible until the entire 12"x12" sheet is adhered to your fabric.

4. Trim off the excess and then use your bone folder again (or a credit card or ruler if you don't have a bone folder) to get out any remaining creases or air bubbles. And no, I was not able to get out that huge crease but as I was cutting the sheet in half to fit through my Big Shot I decided not to worry about it. Remember, IRON FIRST!

5. Cut your sheet to fit your Big Shot die - I used the Fun Flowers Bigz L die so a simple cut in half sufficed. If your die is smaller you may want to cut your sheet smaller to minimize waste. Make your Big Shot sandwich (cutting mat - Die - fabric - cutting mat) and run everything through your Big Shot (or other manual cutting system - whatever you have.) 

5b. I found that some of my flowers didn't cut completely through, so when I ran my second piece of fabric through I used a scrap piece of card stock as a shim and the flowers cut out perfectly. In this picture you see the white card stock shim on top of the Big Shot sandwich - this is very important. If you put it under the top cutting mat you will just end up cutting out white card stock flowers as well as fabric ones. Maybe that's what you want ... maybe it's not!

6. Sit back admire your beautiful fabric flowers! :) I cut out two full sets plus a couple extra of the larger flowers to have on hand.

7. Time to assemble your card. Obviously, you would use whatever papers coordinated with your fabric, I am lucky enough to get to work with Stampin' Up papers and fabrics which are already pre-coordinated. So here I am showing you a piece of Riding Hood Red card stock (5.5" x 4.25" folded in half) and two pieces of the Twitterpated Designer Series paper which coordinate with that pink Twitterpated Designer Fabric.

8. I love to ink my edges. I find it gives added definition and "finish" to my projects. Here I am showing you how I do that using a Stamping Sponge that I've simply cut into a wedge shape. I am using Soft Suede ink - my favourite colour for inked edges!

9. Don't forget about your fabric flowers. They gain a lot by having their edges inked too!

10. For our first card I simply adhered my paper pieces as shown using my Snail Adhesive runner. Then it was time to start building my fabric flower embellishment. Carefully peel the backing from the largest die cut flower and adhere it to the card as shown below.

11. Continue this with the smaller flowers laying them down in a offset pattern being sure to keep them centred.

12. Finishing touches. I finished my card off with a button tied with some bakers twine and a sentiment stamped onto a piece of Whisper White card stock. Here is a close up of the finished flower.

13. For a more 3-dimensional flower like this one, I simply left the backings on each flower layer and used my bone folder to curl them after they were adhered together. With the addition of a Vintage Faceted Button, it looks like this on the finished card.

Well, that's one way to use fabric on your cards and layouts ... are you still with me? Want another way?

How about using it in place of paper? That's right, you heard me. Instead of pieces of patterned paper on this layout, I used pieces of fabric.

There are literally 3 pieces of paper on this whole layout (okay, 5 if you count the photos!) - the background card stock and the two pinked circles under the rolled fabric flowers. Everything else is fabric!

The large square of brown fabric was adhered using another Multipurpose Adhesive Sheet and the smaller pieces were adhered using Sticky Tape. (If I had a functional sewing machine I would have sewn them to the card stock but ... I don't, so tape and glue are my friends!)

This is what my layout's starting point looked like.

Here a close up of the layers of fabric. Oh yeah, I also wrote my journaling right onto the fabric! Easy peasy!!

And now for my third way to use fabric on a layout or card - make a rolled flower embellishment like this one.

Here's how I did it.

1. Start with a giant glue dot - take off the top layer of plastic to expose the glue.

2. Twist your fabric and place one end in the middle of the glue dot.

3. Keep twisting your fabric as you roll it around and around from the centre out until you are left with something that looks like this. The longer and thicker your piece of fabric the bigger and fuller your finished flower. I punched out a 2.5" circle of white card stock and used my pinking shears to pink the edges. Once it was mounted onto this I added a button and called it done! 

I used smaller scraps of the brown fabric to make another flower - here's a close up of that one.

The strips were narrower and shorter so the flower is looser and smaller than the other one on the page.  

One last way to use fabric on your layouts ... as trim like I did to anchor the photo on this layout.

Yes, that is yet another variety of fabric flower but this post is already reaching epic proportions so I think we'll save that for another time. 

Thanks for joining me today as we explored my second favourite thing to stock pile ... FABRIC! As always, please leave a comment sharing ways in which you've used fabric and I'll be sure to pop over and check it out. 

Here are your links for products featured in today's post:

Big Shot Multipurpose Adhesive Sheet 

Twitterpated Designer Fabric

Big Shot Die-Cut Machine

Bone Folder

Fun Flowers Bigz L Die
Twitterpated Designer Series Paper
Stamping Sponge
Snail Adhesive
Designer Buttons
Baker's Twine
Essentials Designer Fabric
Jumbo Sticky Rounds
2-1/2 Inch Circle Punch