Sweet Home card box

Here's another card box I made from our My Acrylix Organizers. This one uses Sweet Home paper, love the color combinations. For directions to similiar boxes, you might want to check out.

Card Box Instructions

Thank you card

This is the card I entered into a card-making contest this last weekend. I loved the way it turned out with all the dry embossing and border punches. The stamp set is our new Treasures Stamp of the Month for September.

Layout Roundup

I did some new layouts over the weekend at a 3 day crop, normally I do many more than 8 pages but I was helping to run the crop too and that meant I was out of my seat a lot. I did win the page contest though, check out the layout with the surfboards for the winning entry.

Post it Jacket

For the CTMH party I had last week I gave away a bunch of little gifts in the goodie bag I showed you a couple of days ago, one bag of the decorated Hershey's nuggets, a Top Coat, a handmade card, a check book cover (show you that soon) and these cute post it notes. For these you need post it notes, some inks, a stamp set, a block, distressing sponge, a trimmer, a dry embossing tool and adhesive. I used really small post it notes, just two inches by one and half inches. Now I warn you, if you are going to stamp a decoration on one of these tiny post it pads, it's not easy because they keep wanting to pull apart. If the pad kind of falls apart you can put it back together but make sure that all the sides are flush when you stick them back together. Or, you could take it easy on yourself and not stamp every page of the post it pad!

The stamp set Grown with Love is a good one for this task because it has so many small decorations. I chose the little heart for this post it pad. Lift up one post it at a time and stamp on the lower right corner. I used Tulip ink.

For the decorative part on top you need to cut some pattern paper (I used paper from the Animal Cookies set) 2" by 1 1/2". Then cut some white paper 1 3/4" by 1 1/4". Distress the edges.

For the outside cover cut some tulip paper 2 1/8" wide and 4 1/2" long. Put it in your trimmer and score it at the 1 1/2", 3/8", and 1 5/8" mark. I know that's hard on some trimmers but just keep the 3/8" score at just shy of 1/2" and the 1 5/8" just a bit over 1 1/2". Clear as mud I know, sorry. Distress and fold and do the best you can!!

Now the 1 1/2" piece is the top and that doesn't get glued down. Put a good strong glue like Tombow along the short 3/8" score mark all the way down the rest of the whole piece. Lay your post its down on the back piece so that it's binding is up against the 3/8" section.

Fold the small bottom piece up and fold under the post its. Now put more glue right on top of the red folded piece to really attach the post it pad down tight. Press the rest of the glued parts up against the post its.

Turn your blue pattern paper over and glue some matching ribbon to the back in the center. Do this twice.

Glue one blue piece to the back and one to the front making sure the ribbons hang down the open side of the post its.

Stamp any little saying on the white paper, distress and glue it on the top of the post it holder. That's it then, tie the ribbon and give it away to someone and make their day.

Here's the finished products I did for my party, they were a big hit.

In Memoriam - Patrick Swayze

Gift Bag

I had a great new catalog premiere party at my house yesterday. We played scrapbooking and stamping Jeopardy, had fun food, saw all the new Close to my Heart products and everyone received a gift bag full of handmade goodies! Here's instructions for the bag itself. I will also post all the gifts that were in it soon. These white craft bags can be found lots of different places, Meijers, Target, JoAnn's, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc. It measures 5" by 8 1/2".

Using Back Country paper cut two pieces 5" by 6" and distress the edges with Outdoor Denim ink and a sponge tool.

Glue or use Tombow to attach those down, making sure that you go above the crease of the bottom of the bag, it's about 2 inches from the very bottom. Using the Extreme Happiness stamp take the long strip of flowers and stamp on both sides below the crease as a border. I found that in this case using the sponge that comes with the stamp set didn't work as well as stamping it on a flat surface due to the bumps and cushioning already in the bag.

Cut two three inch piece of white papers to stamp the hibiscus flower. Stamp the flower itself (using the sponge this time) in Outdoor Denim as shown, on the diagonal.

Stamp the center in Barn Red and the stamin (I think that's what it's called) in Honey. I love this three step stamping!

Mat your flower with some Barn Red cardstock cut 3 1/4" by 3 1/4". Distress both pieces with Outdoor Denim (if you like).

You'll need one each for the front and the back.

Glue them directly in the center of the background paper on the bag.

Cutting through both the back and front at the same time, punch two notebook paper sized holes in the center of the bag about a 1/2 inch from the top. Choose a ribbon that matches the paper and tie one both front and back. You could also use a very long ribbon to tie through all four holes at once to close the bag up more like a gift, just make sure the bow is easy to untie. There you go, an easy, very inexpensive bag that says a lot about you for taking the time to make it extra special!

American Idol autograph book

Every year I go and see the American Idol tour and every year my friend, Paula, and I spend time trying to meet them. It takes effort and pre-plannnig but we usually manage to be in the right place at the right time. Last year we took one of the Close to my Heart accordian albums, a blank one, for the Idols to sign. It worked okay except the Idols signed it every which way and when I later scrapbooked it the autographs were upside down and right side up and just didn't look as readable as I'd hoped. This time Paula and I decided to make the book ahead of time leaving the perfect spaces for the Idols to sign. We were lucky enough to get 9 out of 10 Idol autographs. It's not Close to my Heart paper in case you're wondering. Here's the title page. There are 10 Idols and only 8 pages so we had to squeeze a few together on the pages.

On the left page was supposed to be Megan's along with Allison and I totally forgot to put it on. Megan signed anyway on the upper left, Allison right on the journaling block. Matt (my fellow Western Michigan University alumni) is on the right. He was very popular at the show being a Michigan guy.

Anoop was the only one who didn't sign. He came out only briefly and never made it down to where we were standing. Michael signed next to his picture. Adam Lambert was most obviously the favorite at the show and after as was in evidence when a herd of people shoved their way through the very thick bushes behind me when Adam came near. I was most thrilled with meeting him myself and was more than pleased when he looked at my book then up at me and said, "that's neat."

Danny was the person who I voted for the most (along with Matt). I liked his voice and his story. He came out to see us during the day (we were at the arena from 2:30 in the afternoon to about 1:30 in the early morning). I was very excited to meet him. There's a picture of Paula and Danny down below the album pictures that turned out just excellent.

Lil and Scott signed very close to each other but I could make it out. The winner of American Idol, Kris, signed the last page of the book. He was very cute and very sweet.

Here's Michael and me, early in the day.

The best photo, Danny and Paula, what a great time we had!

Candy!

A few months back I showed you how to use mailing labels to make cute little wrapped Hershey's Nuggets. Well, I'm making party favors for my new catalog premiere party this Sunday (each person gets a goodie bag full of handmade items as my thank you) and I wanted to make those candy wrappers again and also a little bag topper too. So, let's review how to make the wrappers first. You need some blank mailing labels, I recommend the ones that are 1" by 4". Shorter than 4 inches and the label just barely makes it around the nugget. It's better to have a bit too long than too short.

I used the new stamp set Many Thanks. I started with one of the larger stamps but not too large or half your stamp will disappear off from the label. With this type of random stamping, the rule of threes doesn't matter as much. Simply stamp around the page of labels leaving space for the smaller stamps. I used autumn terracotta.

Next I took the next smallest stamp and used outdoor denim ink. Stamp it in between the other leaves.

Fill in the spaces again with another stamp and honey ink. It's okay if the leaves overlap a bit.

I went ahead with a 4th stamp and used autumn terracotta again, slipping the leaf in the smaller spaces.

Lastly I took a small acorn stamp and the outdoor denim ink and stamped anywhere that need another splash of the darker color.

Once done, peel off a label.

Start your label on the side of the candy, wrap it around keeping the edges flush.

I bought Wilton clear mini treat bags and they just barely fit 4 candies. The bag is too tall for only four candies so you can either trim the top of the bag or fold it over twice. Staple it to hold it steady for your topper.

Here's two options for a topper. You can randomly stamp on a piece of white cardstock just like you did on the labels. Cut out 3" by 4" rectangles, score so that the piece folds down 1 1/2". Distress with outdoor denim ink.

Attach to your bag with a staple on each side. Add a 1" by 1 1/2" piece of white cardstock that you distressed with outdoor denim. Stamp the "many thanks" sentiment in autumn terracotta and add to the topper.

Here's the finished look, cute, huh?

The other option is to cut a 3" by 4" piece of white cardstock, distress with outdoor denim ink and fold. Use one of your leftover labels and stick it right on the middle of the topper then add the "many thanks" label like you did above. Both looks work great! So, do you think my customers will like these Sunday?



If you like this you might also like Candy Time, Part Two.