Merry Christmas

I would like to wish you all the blessing of Christmas, and I hope you have the good fortune of spending time with those you love this holiday season. We have all our family gatherings on other days so today we will be spending the day with friends and all the lovely people at our local soup kitchen.

I created this frame using a wonderful piece of word art I found as well as the Classic Christmas digital paper pack from Kindred Creations.

Magnolia cup sleeve.

I used a cup sleeve template and created a file where I layered various magnolia blossoms to create a bouquet. I added a shadow between the layers to give it some dimension, I then added a digital paper behind the flowers and printed it out. I cut it to the shape of the cup sleeve template and then covered it with a clear mac tac that I cut slightly larger than the card stock. I folded over the sides to the back. I cut the top and bottom every half inch and folded it towards the back as well. I then adhered it onto the fun foam that was cut to the shape of the larger template. I did cut a portion of the fun foam off the end so it wouldn't overlap like the card stock layer. I then stitched all around the card stock through the foam as well as stitching the overlapping paper together. Then just to add a wee little bit of dimension to the project I stitched on a small fabric butterfly between the magnolia blossoms.  I slipped the whole thing onto my ceramic travel mug and now it is sooo pretty... no more bland boring old travel mug for me.   The layer of clear mac tac allows it to handle a little bit of moisture, of course I still wouldn't suggest more than a damp rag to wipe the sleeve, but it easily slips of to wash the mug.

Heart box

So here is my project.  I created a heart shaped box and used the Love Banners digital stamp set and die cut the fancy heart shapes.

After I assembled the heart box I rubbed the edges with metallic chalk, then added dots of White Opal Liquid Pearls around the edges. I cut the fancy heart shape out of white card stock and covered it with Delta Ceramcoat Pearl paint. I cut a matted image of the same shape from red card stock.  I mounted them onto the heart box using foam adhesive between the layers.  I then printed the Love Banner onto a (regular) transparency, added copper embossing powder and heat set it.  (I should have used an embossing buddy or dryer sheet to remove the static first.)  I cut out the transparency and lined just the banner with white paper and layered it over the Leaf Heart.
I then layered a Prima blossom with branches punched from brown card stock using the Martha Stewart Twig Punch, red stamens (cake decorating department), green rose leaves using the Martha Stewart punch, and a deep red bow and adhered it on the leaf heart just under the banner.  Lastly I added some KaiserCraft clear jewels to the leaf heart.

My DH was telling me how great it turned out and how much depth there was to the project (wow, I was surprised) and proceeded to tell me "I hope you didn't create it for me" lol  It's just a little too fru-fru for him.

Bunny Bouquet

This little tissue pack holder would be perfect to add to a little girl's backpack.  Normally those little packages of tissues get so squished after you open them.  After I put the box together and added the Karen Neuburger paper I hastily added the Bunny Bouquet digital stamp I had coloured to the front of the box... not realizing I hadn't finished smoothing out the colouring job (yes, I have too much on the go right now).  Oh well, it is stuck now, so short of finding something the exact size of the inside of the box I can't touch it up.  I did not add any dimensional adhesives, so that the image wouldn't catch on anything while being used and torn off.  The box opens at the bottom to replace the package of tissue.  These little boxes are really easy to put together and I plan to make another one for my own purse.  If I remember I will take a few pics along the way and create a tutorial to share with all of you.

Happy New Year

Happy New year to you all.  I hope 2011 brings you health and happiness.  Here's a toast to you and yours!

We had a fabulous time bringing in the new year with friends.  In preparation for the celebration I made up a stack of wine glass collars.  I must say however that people didn't get what they were for, even if they absolutely loved how cute they were.   I did place a pen beside them so that the guests could write their name on them before they attached them to the glasses.  The hardest part of the project was picking all the little bits out after I cut them.  There is a slit to allow you to slip them around the stem.  If I remember next year I will whip up a file for some collars to use to bring in 2012... I didn't make this file until late yesterday and in reality I didn't choose to host the celebrations until the 30th when we learned of health problems for our would-be hosts (Thankfully they are doing well and even able to make it out for a while!).

Altered Christmas Candle

I'm so thrilled to have been chosen by Cora from Digital Two for Tuesday to be a Guest Designer for her Christmas images.  This is the last of three projects I designed for her.  I posted the first project here and the second project is posted here.  You can also check out all the projects as they were all posted on the Digital Two for Tuesday site Saturday.  Please go and check out her blog for some really great digital images, there were many more great images I could have used. Cora asked us to create some non card projects, like gifts, decor or other 3D projects.

For this project I decorated a pillar candle.  I printed out the Christmas Day image from Digital Two for Tuesday with the lmap duplicated to a corner of the image.   I coloured it with Lyra artist pencils and a gold gel pen.  I cut it out and double matted it with white card stock using the

Magic Matter and inked the outer mat green. I also cut out the second copy of the lamp and added it to the scene using foam adhesive. I added some clear Kaisercraft jewels to the corners of the scene.  I then took the Bookend 2 image from Digital Two for Tuesday. and used it as an overlay over a dark red colour to achieve the same red colour I added to the chairs in the scene. and printed it out in 5x7". I took a strip of this and matted it the same way I matted the scene.  I used the two sections to wrap around the candle.  I then punched numerous branches with the Martha Stewart twig punch from dark green card stock.  I placed the candle on a CD I no longer required and carefully placed the branches all around under the candle and sprinkled red seed beads around for the berries.

You can push the wrap down as the candle burns, but it should be removed once it gets close enough to chance any contact with the flame.  Again this would be a great gift for someone but you might want to keep one for yourself too.

Gift Box: Girl with Cat

I'm so thrilled to have been chosen by Cora from Digital Two for Tuesday to be a Guest Designer for her Christmas images.  This is the second of three projects I designed for her.  I posted the first project here and the last project will be posted here tomorrow.  You can also check out all the projects as they were all posted on the Digital Two for Tuesday site yesterday.  Please go and check out her blog for some really great digital images, there were many more great images I could have used. Cora asked us to create some non card projects, like gifts, decor or other 3D projects.

I created a simple 5½" square box by scoring each of the sides of an 8 3/8" square piece of card stock at 1½". I cut along the score line up to the next score along two of the sides and glued the tabs to the inside of the box. I repeated the same procedure with an 8 ½" square piece of card stock for the lid. I then cut two 6" scalloped dark green mats and adhered it to the bottom of the box and the top of the lid. Then I layered a 5½" piece of red card stock on to the lid.  From white card stock I cut the snowflake border by Monica Bjork and layered it over the red.  I sized the Christmas Cat image from Digital Two for Tuesday to fit inside the space of the frame.  I then changed the colour of the image to the same dark green colour of the card stock and printed it out.  I then used Lyra artist pencils, a gold gel pen and glitter to colour the image and adhered it to the top of the box.  I wrapped the circumference of the box with lace, then red ribbon which I also tied into a bow with the bow easy.  I added some clear KaiserCraft jewels to the center of the larger snowflakes in the frame.  This is an easy little box to create that can be filled with a multitude of things to create a beautiful thoughtful gift.

Santa: Altered Tile

I'm so thrilled to have been chosen by Cora from Digital Two for Tuesday to be a Guest Designer for her Christmas images.  This is the first of three projects I designed for her.  Please watch for the other two projects to be posted here tomorrow and Monday.  You can also check out all the projects as they will all be posted on the Digital Two for Tuesday site today.  I wish I had had more time because there were certainly more images I had ideas for, so go and check out her blog for some really great digital images. Cora asked us to create some non card projects, like gifts, decor or other 3D projects.

For this project I purchased an 8x10" plain white tile from the hardware store. I had intended to do this project as a laser copy transfer, but unfortunately with 4 days of deep snow and white out conditions I just couldn't justify driving into town for a mere photocopy.  So I switched gears.  I edited this Santa image slightly in my photo editing software so that it would print precisely in an 8x10" space (I believe I stretched the width ever so slightly... a square tile with some text set up beside the image would have been lovely as well, but I could only find 12x12 tiles, too big for a standard printer page).  I taped tissue paper onto a sheet of printer paper making sure I fastened it along all sides.  It's especially important to make sure it is taped along the bottom and the lower sides of the tissue paper so it feeds nicely into the printer.  I printed the image onto the tissue paper.  I then covered the tile with a thin layer of Mod Podge and very carefully lay the image onto the tile using a scraper or something like a credit card to make sure there are no air bubbles or wrinkles (or very few anyway).  Should you make a mistake just wash your tile clean and start over again.  I then used craft paint and artist pencils to colour Santa.  I also used Cranberry Adirondack Acrylics to add colour and dimension to the berries.  It would make a great gift... if you bought more than one tile because you probably wouldn't want to part with the first one you created!  So it is good that I bought more than one tile!

Pillow Box

I always figure that for my 16 yr old niece, shopping is fun, and for me it is a stressful thing. (Don't get me wrong I enjoy shopping for myself too, but since I have no idea what she likes it's stressful.)  I figure half the fun of her present will be to go out and do the shopping and then actually have something you like.  So the last few years I've given her money and find a special way to give it to her that still shows my appreciation for her.
I started by cutting a pillow box from white card stock which I then ran through the Cuttlebug with the Holly Ribbons folder.  I then stitched a piece of red card stock that I edged with the Martha Stewart Doily edge punch to the front of the box and trimmed the edges to the shape of the box.  I then glued the box together.  Using foam adhesive I then layered on three pieces of Holly from the Christmas holly, a die cut label, and digital bird image, together with triple looped kitchen string.  The digital stamps were coloured with Lyra pencils and the label was run through the Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots embossing folder.

Halloween Gift Bag

For a second Halloween project I took an ordinary lunch bag and dressed it up for a Halloween gift bag. I found the great GSD file for the spiders web by Caroline, as well as an image for a spider which I converted to a cutting file.  I cut them all from black card stock. I matted the spiders web for the front with orange and black card stock cutting a hole behind the spiders web.  I recycled the packaging from a set of Zva Flourishes to line the opening behind the spiders web. I cut the top off the lunch bag along the front and sides at the same height as the matted spiders web, leaving the back as a flap.

I also cut a hole in the front of the lunch bag and adhered the matted spiders web to the front of the bag. I repeated the same layers for the back of the bag except that I did not create a window with the spiders web. I then took the orange card stock and printed Mary Shelley quote onto it as well as the words 'Happy Halloweeen' using the font 'Cratch'. I also matted these in orange and black and adhered the quote to the top of the flap and the sentiment to the inside. I then took the spiders I had taken and used Versamark and Forever Violet Perfect Pearls to give them a purple hue. To exagerate their creepiness and play up the quote I took orange Zva Basic Lines and added two crystals to each of the spiders as eye popping glowing eyes. I used foam glue dots to adhere them to the front and flap of the bag.

A Halloween Mask

I had great fun with this project that I created just before Halloween.  It turned into such a glamorous mask.  I started with a plain, cheap mask and removed the really bold gold ric rac trim from around the mask and the eyes. I edged the mask with black satin seam binding to give it elegance.  After covering the old adhesive and the edge of the velour with dimensional paint I added Zva Crystals dots around the eyes.  I then added two large Zva Symmetrical Flourishes that I cut from their backing, starting at the left corner of the eye.   For a pop of colour and glamour I added three red rose blossoms just above the bottom of the flourishes.  In order to punch up the glam factor just a little bit more I curled a large length of black satin ribbon, as well as small red pearl garland and adhered it under the blossoms.

Paper folding

This is a quick post to share some paper folding elements I created for a swap.  I used Karen Neuburger Celebrate stitched glitter stripe and glitter posies patterned paper.  For the butterflies I used these directions.  I punched the sides of the rectangle with a Martha Stewart doily edge punch before folding.  I then added two sprays of pearl spray (I pushed the second pearl up to the first) and glued it to the body for antlers, then placed four KaiserCraft pearls to create a dimensional body.  For the flowers I used these directions, using two different sized circles.  I added a pink jewel brad to the center of each flower.

Thank You gift bag

I created this lovely gift bag using an ordinary paper lunch bag as the base.  I tucked some box board inside the back of the bag and used a ruler and utility knife to cut of the top of the bag except for the back. I refolded the bag downward so that the crease is now at the bottom of the bag.  I then cut two pieces of yellow card stock to cover the front and back of the bag.  I also cut two pieces of yellow card stock for the flap on the back of the bag.  I cut the piece that will be on the front of the bag when it's closed longer to accommodate the Martha Stewart floral vines border punch. I attached the 4 pieces to the paper bag.  Then I took some Karen Neuburger Celebrate glitter posies paper and cut two pieces slightly smaller than the yellow card stock on the front and back.  Before adding the paper to the back of the bag I punched two holes and threaded some white 1/8" satin ribbon through it so I could tie a tag on there later on.  I also took the coordinating stitched glitter stripe paper and cut some 

pieces slightly smaller than the yellow card stock on the front and back of the flap.  I cut two bracket shapes; the white card stock slightly larger than the pink.  I then printed the quote on the pink tag using this technique and mounted it on the white.  Using a Gelly Roll stardust glitter pen I freehand drew another bracket on the white tag.  I added two KaiserCraft green jewels to the top and bottom of the bracket tag.  I placed it on the front of the bag so that the flap just overlaps the tag.  I cut a second set of bracket tags for the back except that I left it blank for the giver to write a message for the recipient and punched two holes instead of the jewel at the top of the bracket.  I secured it to the back of the bag by threading the ribbon through the tag and tying it in a bow.  I finished the card by tying another big loopy bow out of the 1/8" white satin ribbon and adhered it to the front of the flap, and adhered a yellow Crafts mulberry rose on top of the bow.  I then created two flowers from 3 layers of Dollarama die cut flowers and KaiserCraft pearls using this technique and added it to either side of the rose.  I cut

some leaves from light green card stock using the Martha Stewart twig punch and tucked it under the flowers.  I then finished card by adding a sentiment printed on pink card stock under the bottom flap.

Altered Journal

This week I am a prayer partner for SERVE, a program where youth travel for a week to another community to perform service work for financially challenged families or the organizations that serve them. My prayer partner is actually one of the leaders that accompanied the youth. I'll be creating a little something to encourage him throughout the week, and I hope to be sharing these projects with you here this week. For the first day I thought I would provide him with a journal to write in throughout his stay (and beyond) and I altered it by adding the theme verse to the front cover. I started by creating a piece of word art for the front cover. The Theme verse is from James 5:11 (the Message), and I used FLW Script and Bud Easy. I placed this on a background using 3 papers, tan burlap, black pattern and spalding, from DCWV La Creme digital kit. I printed this out onto plain white card stock. I cut it out and covered it with a clear mac-tac, folding the edges over to the back. I then glued that to the front cover of the journal.

Calendar pages

As part of a swap I created these 2 calendar pages.
The first one I used an unmounted stamp, unfortunately it did not carry a manufacturers name when I purchased it. I coloured it with water colour pencils and a water pen. I placed it on a blue background that I ran through the Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder. I cut out the word March with my Silhouette and placed it beside the image. Along the bottom I added a green card stock and used yellow ric rac to hold up the top half of the calendar. I rounded all the corners and left a white border all around.



The second one I used some leftover Fancy Pants paper and card stock to cover the base of the calendar. I then chose to change things up by adding the month along the bottom. I also added some stickles to help hold the calendar open. I added a layered flower to the card front along side which I placed the calendar.

Altered Milk Bottle

We are in the process of renovating an old Victorian house, and added a large luxurious bathroom. Above my soaker tub is an old window turned bookshelf that still has the beautifully massive wood trim around it and is the focal point of the room. I need to fill this bookshelf with various nick nacks to show off. I found this old milk bottle that I thought would be a perfect antique to alter for this space. I have chosen to fill it with bath salts. I found a number of files on the Silhouette website that were perfect for this Victorian project! I cut out the lace in a deep red and sprayed it with cranberry Shimmer Mist to distress it and add some sparkle. I added some pearls to the lace and threaded a piece of pale green ribbon. I wrapped this around the bottle. I then cut an ornate frame, and a second layer for the inside. I inked the frame with Willow Adirondack ink. I edged the inner layer with rhinestones. I then tied a large sheer bow with my Bow Easy. I placed a large red paper rose that I spritzed with Cranberry Shimmer Mist above the bow facing upward slightly. I wrapped the same pale green around the neck of the bottle and added three rhinestones to the ribbon at the front of the bottle. Lastly I created the bottle top out of a piece of chipboard. I layered the top with the same red cardstock spritzed with Glimmer Mist.
I then took a rhinestone flower that was the same size as the bottle top and removed the large rhinestone from the middle and adhered it in the bottle top. I took a piece of silver chain and looped the ends through the prongs of a crystal brad. I placed the brad through the middle of the bottle top creating a pull to remove the bottle top. I covered the bottom of the bottle top with a piece of white cardstock to hide the brad prongs. I still should add the words 'Bath Salts' to the ornate label.

Mini Purse Box

I was debating about what to give my 15 year old niece for Christmas this year. I don't often see her so I don't know too much about here likes and dislikes... there was only one thing I knew she liked...shopping (really, what girl doesn't like to shop lol ). So we decided to just give her some cash. I wanted a creative way to give it to her, and I thought this mini purse box would be just perfect; a purse is where a girl likes to store her cash (until she spends it)!
I found a great pattern for a purse box at Papercrafts Inspirations and created a GSD file to cut with my Silhouette since I can see myself using something as cute as this over and over again. I used a sheet of Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses Peppermint Twist patterned paper. I then decorated it using some Around the Block Christmas Frame Tape that I painted with pearl paint and dusted with glitter before it dried. I then cut the red and white frames as a little tag, that I then doodled on with gold and glitter pens, and added her name. A few years ago I had found some candle wreaths at a dollar store near me that had the perfect size Pointsettia flowers on it for cards, and I bought them in all the available colours. I took one of them and added a bit of Stickles, layered it with a snowflake I cut, and attached it to the frame with a green jewel brad before gluing all that to the purse. They are on both side of the purse. After I assembled the purse I took a sliver of self adhesive Velcro to keep the purse closed, and added a large pearl to the top of the closure.
I love how it turned out!

Here are the links to the GSD files for the purse box with handles and one for the box without handles so you can use ribbon or wire for your purse handle. Just punch some small holes or set two eyelets on the fold line of the flap half an inch from the edge. Then create a fold on either side of the eyelet instead of the single fold line where you placed the two eyelets.
purse box.GSD
purse box2.GSD