The Last Christmas gift of the season

To finish off my crafty Christmas /holiday season there is another gift I want to share.  This one is for my friend who introduced me to scrapbooking through the Cricut. 

I used another kit from Pinecone Press.  This one is a perpetual calendar / address book using Graphic 45's "Place In Time" papers.  I have recently started to get into buttons as embellishments, so I added quite a few.  In fact I added so many buttons and embellishments that the book doesnt close flat. Luckily my friend loves a minibook so full it looks like its exploding!

Also the book gives you an option to make photo mats to add your own pictures to the calendar decorations or to just make it decorative and add extra images from the beautiful paper.  I checked and my friend said she would prefer the extra images and embellishments. So that is the version you see in my pictures. Which, by the way I took with my phone, so the quality may be meh.

Front Cover: I choose slightly different images for the cover and added some buttons, pearls, a cameo and Teresa Collins bling.  I also added ribbon and some paper roses to the spiral binding. The kit comes with printed calendar and address book pages that are pre punched for the spiral.
 

January (and following months): The kit has you add the pattern paper across from each months calendar and as a strip at the top with the month.  The background is from the pattern side of the G45 paper and the decorative pieces are from the other side with the images and borders.  The kit has a diagram of where to cut.  On each month I added a button or other embellishment I thought matched the vibe of that month. Like a cameo for February, a star in July or a button that says lucky in November.

 

 

 

The address book portion didn't have any decorations.  If you are interested in getting a kit they are available on the Pinecone Press website.  The additional materials I used were various buttons (I know some were October Afternoon and Teresa Collins), rhinestones, pearls, and other embellishments.  And although the kit does provide you with plenty of ribbon for the whole book, I did use some additional ribbons I liked.

I think this book is a great idea, especially for people who are as forgetful of dates and birthdays as I am.  In fact I bought a second kit I intend to make for myself.  

Tis the Season to Be Jolly....

More Crafty Christmas-ness form me.  This time I wanted to show off my gift tags and wrapping.  When I was in high school and just after my first attempt at college I worked retail. And the thing I took away from working the holidays in a mall (other then feet that still hurt) is wanting to wrap a present so it looks like it's from a TV show or a store display.

This year I had a lot of help from my handy dandy Cricut.  I recently purchased the Creative Memories "Holiday Tags & More" cartridge and the digital 3D bows package for my Craft Room. (Some time I will have to talk about what a great tool Cricut's Craft Room really is.)  And I used these combined with some of this years beautiful holiday pattern paper to finish off my gift wrapping perfectly.

 First off the gift tags.  I picked 3 or 4 of my favorite tags off the "Holiday Tags" cart and set them up to cut out all the layers on different pattern papers I thought co-ordinated. I then glued them together in various combinations.  Since I did a snowflake theme this year I choose tags and paper that reflected that.  Here you can see them on my desk drying after I added some glitter glue in sparkling shades from Viva and Stickles.

For my wrapping paper I found this gorgeous hand printed on recycled cotton  paper at the Container Store. (OMG they always have the best papers!) It has these concentric circles with a glitter circle in the center. I also have some snowflake and Cjhristmas tree prints in golds and blues.I used the 3D bows in my craft room to make theses cute little bows from card stock and pattern paper. There are 4 basic bow shapes, the single bow, the double bow, a long loopy strip bow and the "rosette" type bow that looks sort of like the ones you would buy in a bag with a square of sticky stapled to the bottom. (You will need brads to assemble the last 2 types.) Each type then has some different styles of edges and layers, like scallops or lacy.  I used alot of the single bow with either a single scallop edge or straight.  I thought they looked clean and pretty. Like the cream and gold card stock one above.

Here you can see a few of my wrapped gifts all ready for giving. As you can see I tried all the different bow shapes out.  I try to mix up my wrapping a bit, with some ribbons and traditional bows as well as adding Cricut cut snowflakes.

 

Here is an example of a "rosette" type bow.  I thought they were really cute all tiny like this one on a jewelry box.  But make sure to get a brad with a long "stem" when you assemble it. (And isn't the candy cane pattern on it so sweet?)


I am all excited to start giving out my gifts now that they are wrapped and ready!
Hope your Christmas in Merry and Bright and that your New Year's is Rockin'!!!!!

Decking the halls

Continuing with my Crafty Christmas theme, I have been making some paper flowers and turning them into wreaths and bouquets for decorations and gifts.

I learned how to make the flowers at Perfect Day Scrapbooking's all day black Friday crop from a very nice lady.  This you tube video shows how to make a similar flower.  I used 4 inch squares of paper and instead of folding the two side triangles down with the "back pattern" showing, I just folded it the opposite way.  Also I used a low temp hot glue gun not the tombow multi glue.I also used from heavy to thin weights of paper, a medium weight seems to work best.
  

A bag of folded "petals" ready to be glued together

 

Some of the flowers in bouquets.  I used faux pearls and colored beads in the centers and glitter glue along the edges of the petals.  Ranger's stickles and Viva Decor glitter liner worked best.

 The wreath I made for our apartment. Snowflakes are my decorating theme this year.  The following are wreaths I made as gifts.  I was really happy with how they looked.

I will post later about how I am doing my gift wrapping and cards.  Hope your holidays are merry!

P.S. If you want written directions I have a pdf I can email, just drop me a note at laurel.and.maggie@gmail.com.

The Holidays start with....a Wizard of Oz Mini Album

So I decided that this year is a crafting Christmas.  I have been busy making gifts and decorations.  For my step sister I picked up a Pinecone Press kit to make a mini ablum using the Graphic 45 "Magic of Oz" line.

First of all I love love love this paper.  I know my step sister will too, because she likes vintage and the Wizard of Oz.  I picked up a kit mainly to save time.  But also because I had bought several of the Pinecone Press album bases, like the interactive album in this kit, during Shop Hop and it was nice to learn how to put the pieces together.

I did not follow the instructions to the letter, the measurements left a bit more of the kraft colored chipboard showing than I like.  I think I will use the blank chipboard albums for more projects now that I have put one together.  I recommend the Pinecone kits, they use some pretty cool papers (lots of Graphic 45 yay! among others) and some unusual shapes and sizes for their custom album blanks. Visit their site here.

 

My First Shop Hop!

I just wrapped up doing the So Cal Shop Hop. And O M G that was so much fun!!  I didn't even know this even existed until I visited a local store and saw a sign advertising it.  I teamed up with Rosie and we went to all the stores.  They had fun photo ops and pins and make and takes. I spent far far too much, but I got a 20% discount at all the stores so whoo hoo! 

I bought or earned all the pins and both (2) make and takes from each store.  So I think I have a big chore in front of me to finish putting everything together.  I plan to make a custom album that will allow for the pin to be stored on the same page as the make and takes.  Any ideas?  I was thinking ribbon or a strip of card stock could be a base for the pins.

Some of the highlights for me were:

• the make and take at Stamping Details in Poway, CA. They taught me a new technique using Versamark and perfect pearls and the butter flies were so pretty.
• driving to Bakersfield, CA for the bonus stores.  I wrote and recorded my own "one hit wonder" on the way for the FB contest. lol
• Finding some new store and meeting some new people.  Many stores like Stamping Details, Jolene's Paperie in Banning and Scrapbooking Made Simple in Santa Clarita stayed open really late to accommodate us. That was super nice.
• Decorating my tote at my homestore, Perfect Day Scrapbooking in Huntington Beach, CA.  That was a fun night of getting to know people.  And I think my bag came out awesome.

 Did I mention there was a Wacky Holiday theme? And a Facebook picture contest (I think I did all the photos.)?  Or that Rosie broght her puppy to all the stores? (She really did- and everyone was so nice about it.) I could go on and on, but a photo is worth a thosand words, right?  So below are some pictures from the Shop Hop.

Happy Father's Day!!!! with a card

Today is Father's Day and I thought I would share the card I made my Dad.  As I have said in previous posts, I find making a masculine card a bit harder that one for a girl.  But I do like how this card came out.  I used my Cricut and my new favorite paper stack, K & Co.'s Designer paper.

I started with the Star Card from the Wild Card Cricut Cartridge. I used a rectangle from Craft Room Basics to weld another panel at the bottom of the card that would flip down when the star was opened. I think if you look at the pictures you will see what I mean.  I used the purple polka dot paper for the card base and added the star outline in a teal blue plain card stock.  I then added the "Dear Old Dad" sentiment from the holiday Craft Room digital cartridge Father's Day-Dear Old Dad. I only used the text portion and not the shadow or stars.  I cut it out in a line green and a pattern paper and layered just the "old" portion over the green in the pattern. (I will look up the name of the paper and list at bottom.) I then used my liquid pearls in a teal color to outline the star on top of the border and my Martha Stewart glitter pen in green to highlight the text.

On the panel behind the star I added a background from the Paper Lace cartridge on the lace1 button of "Flower 2"; I re-sized it a little to make sure it fit on the added panel.  I then traced over the swirly bits with a glitter liner in iridescent. (I used the striped white and grey Designer paper for the lace.) On the back of the star I added a couple of different sizes of stars in the green and teal card stock . I used the star from the cards border and deleted one of the cuts in the hide contour feature. I decorated the teal star with an outline of holographic glitter liner and the green one with sunny yellow perfect pearls.

On the inside of the card I added the Happy Father's Day text from the digital Craft Room download " Father;s Day-Dear Old Dad."  This time I did add the shadow and the diamond/star layers. I used the same teal/bright green color combination.  I put a heavy layer of the iridescent glitter on the diamond shapes to really make them sparkle.  I also cut out 2 slightly larger sets of the diamonds and added them in the corners.I put in one more of the stars- a border stlye one to the fold in the card. And I also added a shadow panel of the lace I used on middle of card to the inside of the added panel to have somewhere to write a note to my dad.I decorated this with the teal Liquid Pearls.

Ok so by now you have probably noticed the weird spay marks in the corners.  I kinda screwed up when i was finishing up the card. I had gone out shopping and found a color of Tattered Angel's Glimmer Mist in a limited edition Halloween color I had been dying to try. Its called Afraid of the Dark and its like a purpley color with green glitter. And I thought it would match the card well but I was too excited and didn't test it so i sprayed too much and it came out clumpy looking and warped the paper. If I had taken my time and done it right it would have looked really cool, but I didn't and I am unhappy with how it came out. Oh well, the card as a whole looks cute and I was happy with it. 

So there it is my Dad's card.. I sent him a book and some sugar free chocolate too.  What did you do for Father's Day? Did you make a card or gift, I would love to see your projects too.

XXOO
L

Product List:

• Cricut Cartridges: Craft Room Basics, Craft Room Father's Day-Dear Old Dad, Wild Card and Paper lace
• Paper: K and Company-Primary Designer Paper, sei-Field Notes and Mike's card stock
• Paints/Inks: Ranger Liquid Pearls-Peacock, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist-Afraid of the Dark, Viva Glitter Liner-Iridescent and Viva Pearl Pen - Sunny Yellow