How to alter a popcorn bag

I don't know about all of you but we're snowed in today. What a great reason to sit down and make a few last minute gifts. Here's one you can make with items in your house right now! I used Jingle paper and the December Word Puzzle (retiring in 21 days so buy now). Cut your white cardstock 12 inches by 6 inches. Cut pattern paper 10 1/2 by 6 inches. Cut a small piece of white cardstock 2 by 1 1/2 inches. Distress all with juniper ink.

Using a border punch, punch a border on the short end of the pattern paper and re-distress.

Glue that pattern piece to the center of the white cardstock.

Tear off the end of the white cardstock about a 1/2 inch from edge of pattern paper, re-distress.

These little photo hangers are very handy for this part. Poke a hole one inch in and 1 1/4 inch from bottom of pattern paper on each side. Attach the photo hangers with matching creme brulee brads as shown.

Round corners of the tag's top with a corner rounder. Stamp Merry Christmas on it in juniper ink and a small design stamp in tulip.

Poke a hole in the top of the tag, you can add an eyelet, I didn't have room so I skipped it. Add a tulip colored mini safety pin.

Wrap paper around the popcorn bag so that it closes on top.

Fold bottom in first, then top should overlap.

Tie white ricrac through the hangers with a bow on the front. Tie it tight so that the paper lies flat. Pin the tag to the left hand side hanger. Talk about a low cost, easy gift!!

How to alter a business card magnet

At the big Close to my Heart team meeting I went to this past weekend I got in on a bulk buy of business card magnets. I love these and actually have yet to use my business cards on them. Instead I turn them into awards for my own team and little refrigerator works of art with my stamps. The magnets measure 3 1/2" by 2" and it takes so little to make them into a sweet gift.

A couple of months ago my brother, Scott Wilson, came to my team meeting and taught all of my downlines and myself to use a brayer. He used to work at a stamp shop and knows everything there is to know about making beautiful cards (he also makes other artwork, I'll include some at the end of this post). He showed us how easy it is to decorate a background with a little ink and a brayer. Brayers work very well with glossy photo paper. I have a ton because I get 100 4 by 6 photo paper cards whenever I buy new inks for my printer. If you take one of those and cut it to 3 1/2 by 2 inches you'll be set to make this magnet art.

I don't know if you've noticed but at the top of almost every page in a Close to my Heart catalog there are "lipstick swatches" of the color combinations used on that page. I utilize these constantly because I'm not good at choosing my own mixture of colors and I could never figure out how to use one of those color wheels. Close to my Heart does it for me so it's the first thing I look for in the new catalog (like the one I just received). The very first color combo in one of our new papers is juniper, olive, creme brulee and cocoa. I thought those would be perfect for this magnet because the colors said "spring" without being too pastel. To start your magnet ink up your own brayer in creme brulee.

Now run it back and forth over the glossy cardstock until it's just the right color for your tastes. Give it a minute or two to dry (glossy dries the ink slower).

Next take the Friendship's Flight stamp set and stamp the sentiment on the lower right hand side in cocoa. Your stamp will stick to the glossy cardstock so carefully peel the paper off the stamp.

You'll be doing some two step stamping on this, first stamp the butterfly background in juniper.

Now line up the outline of the butterfly and stamp it in cocoa. Luckily you can see what you're doing!

Do the same thing with the smaller butterfly, first in juniper....

then in cocoa ink. See how easy this is?

Now take your foam tool and olive ink and distress the edge to provide a pretty outline or frame for your magnet.

Get your magnet and peel the wax paper off so the adhesive shows.

Attach your "work of art" to the business card, trim with scissors if you don't line it up exactly. You're done, how pretty, how easy and what a simple little gift!

Here's a couple more in other colors. Unfortunately the colors look so much better in person than they do here in photos but the point is that you can make these in many different colors to suit your taste.

Here's a piece of my brother, Scott's, art. I'm very proud of him.

How to alter a notebook

Remember yesterday how I told you all that I take pictures as I process through my papercraft, card or layout? These things don't always go smoothly so I end up taking a lot of photos and then editing later. Today I decided to show all my pictures and the process of altering this notebook to show you that it's totally okay to change your mind halfway through just like I do. I've altered one of these particular notebooks before, they are cheap, $1.00, and I found them at Michael's in their dollar section. They measure approximately 5 by 7 inches.

To decorate this one I used Key to my Heart paper, my absolute favorite, in fact, I bought six packages from the clearance sale (see right sidebar) and am considering buying more before they run out.

For the background cut colonial white cardstock paper 4 1/4 by 6 1/2. Cut the pattern paper 4 by 6 1/4. Distress both pieces with juniper ink.

Cut another pattern paper 6 1/4 by 1 1/2 inches. Distress. Attach two large pieces together then add the strip 1/2 inch from outside mat on the left.

Cut another piece of colonial white cardstock 2 1/4 by 2 1/4 and a matching pattern paper mat 2 1/2 by 2 1/2. Stamp a flower from the Tickled Pink stamp set on a scrap piece of paper in juniper ink then cut it out. Add it to the center of the small mats and attach at a diagonal to the notebook about 1 inch down from the top.

Stamp a small flower center in tulip ink and cut out then attach to the middle of the flower.

Stamp another small design inside the flower circle in juniper ink and you're done. But I wasn't. I studied the almost finished product and completely changed my mind, not liking the center flower at all. I felt like the juniper flower didn't stand out enough and the tulip center was too bright especially since their wasn't much of the tulip coloring in the background paper to make it "fit." I tore the whole middle flower off.

Instead I took out a second set of stamps, Endless Friendship. I used the flowers from that and stamped them in sorbet and the centers in juniper then cut them out. Add the three flowers to the center of the small mat and let them overlap. Take the "so happy" stamp from the Tickled Pink stamp set and stamp it in juniper then cut it out closely around the letters. Add it to the bottom of the notebook. Add a couple of sorbet colored ribbons to the top and bottom bindings and it looks so much better. These are completely low cost but wonderful little stocking stuffers or small gifts for that mail carrier who goes out of her way to give you good customer service or the secretary at your church who always has a smile on her face, you know who I mean, make them feel appreciated.

Who doesn't love Target?

I think Target is one of the best stores out there. I love that they have so many unique items and at reasonable prices. Right at the front of the store is the dollar items, now that's what I'm talking about!! I found these Mrs. Field's chocolates there for one buck and knew that I could alter the box to make them look extra special. This is the first that all my children have stopped believing so it's difficult for me to keep the magic going. Instead I decided that I will really work on the quality and not necessarily the quantity of what appears in their stockings. Altered items can really help. Covering this box with pretty paper and decorations is a cinch!

This box measures 4 by 1 3/4 by 1 inch in height. Whatever box you choose to alter, it's just a matter of adjusting the measurements that I have below to make it fit. Make sure to distress all papers in ponderosa pine ink if you like.

For this box I cut a piece 3 3/4 by 7 inches so it would wrap around the whole thing. I used Evensong paper, not your traditional holiday designs but certainly the traditional colors. I used a good coating of Tombow adhesive to the paper to make it stick to the shiny sides of the candy box.

Make sure you end the seam on the bottom of the box as to hide it. Once I'd finished this part I was disappointed at how much of the box's design still showed so I decided to wrap it the other way. Every one of my altered items, cards and scrapbooks are works in progress as I'm taking pictures and most of the time I don't know how'll they turn out so please don't think that I have all the answers. I'm a learner and experimenter just like you.

I matted the pretty flowered paper with some ponderosa pine cardstock. The box was long enough that I needed to cut a whole 12 inch strip of each, the floral is 1 1/2 inches wide with the ponderosa pine piece cut 1 3/4 inches wide. With lots of Tombows, attach them to each other then wrap them securely around the box as shown.

Now take a great stamp set like Christmas Melodies and cut out a 1 1/2 by 1 1/2 inch white square and a 1 3/4 by 1 3/4 cranberry cardstock square. Attach them together and stamp in ponderosa pine ink. Use an 1/8 inch hole punch and punch out three little holly berries and glue them onto the stamped image.

Attach that piece with lots of adhesive to the center of the top of the candy box.

Now pick a pretty cranberry colored ribbon and tie it to the side of your stamped piece to really complete the look! I know my kids will love to receive this special "wrapped" box of candy, sure they'll rip it off and ruin all my nice work but perhaps at some point they'll realize how much their mom loves them to make a $1.00 box of candy look pretty!!

Accordian Album - Whoops A Daisy

I love making these little accordian albums. They have 8 sides and fold up like an album or stand up as a display. I am making this one as a gift and I wanted to share the instructions with you. It would take the length of my blog to explain each page in as much detail as I usually do so I'm going to give you measurements and hope that the pages are fairly self explanatory. There are a couple of tips to using this type of album, one thing is that you want to make sure that all your pages are going the same way so keep checking that as you go. Make sure that your first page opens on the right. I have had friends who put it on with the opening to the left, whoops. Another tip is to use Tombow or glue dots to attach your paper, since this book gets handled a lot and doesn't have page protector. You really want the paper to be on securely. Complete the whole page before gluing it to the book. I used the retiring paper Whoops a Daisy. It's the best paper for this book because when you cut your 12 by 12 papers into fourths it has the most beautiful decorated corners. Make sure you distress all the pieces of paper in this book so that the pattern papers don't compete with each other.

For the cover I cut three papers, one pattern 6 by 6, one pattern 4 by 4 and one 3 x 3 cardstock. You can see I tipped the second paper into a diaogonal. These three papers form the background for either your title or a pretty flower.

For the flower I used hydrangea ink and my Endless Friendship stamp set. Yes, you can stamp directly on paper flowers. Stamp your image randomly around the flower, not overlapping too much, a little goes a long way. You can distress the edges of the flower with a sponge tool and the hydrangea ink.

Punch out a 1 1/2 inch and a 1 1/4 inch circle out of cardstock, layer them in the center of the flower and add a circle window charm. (The square window charms are being sold dirt cheap in the clearance sale right now). Use Tombow generously on the back of the flower and press it down dead center on your page.

For page two cut a 6 by 6 pattern paper, 5 1/2 by 5 3/4 cardstock, trim one edge with a border punch. Glue the cardstock to the left side of the pattern paper so that it will have good balance when you attach 8 to 10 brads down the right side. I put mine right in the lacy border. Stamp a nice little phrase down at the left hand corner. My theme for this book is friendship. I used our January stamp of the month (this is a sneak peek) True Friends stamp set.

For page three cut a 6 by 6 pattern paper and a 4 1/2 by 4 1/2 piece of cardstock. Notice how that Whoops a Daisy paper has the beautiful flowers perfectly lining the corner. Use a corner rounder on the cardstock and distress. Stamp a pretty complimentary design (again from Endless Friendship) along the opposite corner and attach with hydrangea ink. If you have the wiry sponge tool, make tiny hydrangea specks all over the mat. Add three sparkles to the right and bottom of the mat.

For page four cut 6 by 6 pattern paper, 4 1/4 by 4 1/4 cardstock, 4 by 4 pattern paper and a light colored cardstock 3 by 3. Stamp an image randomly over the light colored cardstock, Endless Friendship here in ocean ink.

Attach that piece 1/8 inch from both top and left hand side of your 6 by 6 paper. Add the 4 by 4 pattern paper to it's mat then attach them 3/4 inch from bottom and right hand side. Stamp a pretty flower in watermelon ink with a hydrangea ink stamped center and cut out. Attach with a pop dot to the upper right hand side of the page. Add a window charm to the middle and three waxy flax threaded buttonst to the bottom left of the page.

On page five you can use one of the pretty quotes and frames from the True Friends set (once you get it in January!!) as your title. Stamp in watermelon and hydrangea then carefully cut it out.

Cut a 6 by 6 pattern paper and two 2 3/4 by 2 3/4 pieces of light cardstock. Tilt those two pieces across the center of page as shown. Add your framed accent with pop dots to the upper left side of the page and decorate with six sparkles.

Page six requires a 6 by 6 pattern paper, three 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 cardstock squares. I textured mine with a dotted template and a Cuddlebug. You also need to cut a 4 by 2 piece of cardstock (I didn't emboss this piece). This piece is turned on it's side but basically you want to lay the strip down on one side 1/2 inch from border then layer the three squares over it, turning one diagonally, leaving room on one corner for the flowers.

Using the Endless Friendship stamp set, stamp three flowers with hydrangea and ocean, cut them out, put them on with glue dots (not pop dots) in the center of the flowers only so the petals slightly curl up. It's a very pretty 3-d look. Add circle window charms to the center. These photos don't do this page especially, justice. It's so gorgeous to layer cut out flowers like this.

On page seven cut a 6 by 6 pattern paper, a 4 1/2 by 4 1/2 pattern paper and two 6 by 1 inch strips of cardstock. Put the strips as shown, 1/4 inch from the sides of the page. Stamp another of the cute friendship phrases from True Friends with it's frame on some white paper. Use your wiry brush to add speckles, cut out and then use pop up dots to attach it to the upper left hand side of the page. Add a couple of sparkly brads to the upper right strip.

The eighth pages is very easy, cut a 6 by 6 pattern paper, 1 by 6 cardstock strip, and a 5 by 5 cardstock square. Stamp those pretty leaves from Endless Friendship on the corners in hydrangea ink. Attach strip to left hand side about a 1/4 inch from the edge. Put mat right in the center of the page and add five small sparkles at the bottom right. When you are finished you will have a beautiful book already for photos. What a great gift!