Undefined - a quick review

Stampin' Up has a new kit called Undefined. It contains the tools you need to carve your very own stamp designs. You can make 4 stamps with the kit. Additional items can be purchased to make more but I bet I can get some rubber for carving with a Michaels coupon too.

Now, dont be shocked that the kit doesn't come with written instruction. There are pictures but I found a google search to be much more helpful. The tools are what you would expect from SU! They are well made and work great.

I hesitated to buy the kit but now I am glad that I did. It was fun to design my own stamps with my daughter.

Easy little tree

Hey there! We are putting little things around the house to get us into the holiday season.
                       

Thinner strips = more tree like. I liked somewhere in between. You can use glitter or stamps to make it even more festive. These are also cute in patterned paper. Let the kids draw or stamp away! Wouldn't it be fun for them to decorate it and then put it in their room?  :)

Just cut some strips of paper, you decide on your size. Curl them by rubbing them against the side of your table. Using stick pins, attach the paper to a styrofoam cone. Those cones come in all sizes so you could make a fun display out of these.

Happy Crafting!

Paper Gift Bows (repost)

Hey there!! The Barrel featured the paper gift bow video from last year! Yay!
I wanted to re-post the tutorial for the holidays. In case you missed it last year:




Hope you all have a great week!

Scrapbook page frame and card...

The yellow is a new love for me. I'm really digging it right now...
      
I've been wanting to do this frame for a long time but I wanted it to be a simple and easy to look at page. I'm really into things being simple or "clean" when I have to look at it daily... Now If i could just ge tmy laundry to understand that! lol!!
         
What color are you loving right now?

Work in Progress: Easter scrapbook layout

Hey crafters. I'm like to work on pages before I have the pictures for them. I know that is weird but I'm not a pro-photographer, if you're a reader you know that. So I pretty much know how my pictures come out and I only take about 75 per every event so I have plenty to choose from. LOL!

How did we survive before digital pictures?!

So here we go, this layout is all Stampin Up. I wanted to see how I'd do using all one brand. I like it. The ribbon and cardstock match so that is a nice change of pace for me.  :) 

What do you think?

Simple Layout - Playing Catch Up

Simple 2 page layout: I'm playing catch up so I thought I would share with those of you who are as well. :)


The colors always seem off in my pictures... I'm no photographer. lol! You all knew that already.

Sharing another Layout

I'm a little behind on my scrapbook for 2009. Who isn't right? Here's Aurora's 8th birthday party. We did cupcake decorating. All the girls had so much fun.
     
How's that page for freaking cupcake overload? Ha! I even found brads that were cupcakes.
         
Aurora asked me if she can have a Halloween birthday next year. That should be fun...

Halloween Layout

I love inking. Who doesn't really?? Something so simple really changes the way a whole page looks. I did this layout for the scrapbook store in Sherwood, called Just Scrap It. We did a workshop to get people comfortable with inking, ribbon using and rub-ons. I'm addicted to all of those things.
      
I swear I have enough ribbon to wrap around the world twice. lol! All my friends have an on-going joke about how much I just *need* more ribbon. I have tried to explain the rule to them...

She who dies with the most supplies WINS!

Anyway, what do you think of this layout? The pumpkin is just three ovals punched out, inked and glued. The stem is a little bit of SU! ribbon just glued on. Gotta love those punches.  : )   Happy Halloween!

Layout and Sketch 12X12

I have only ever done sketches as part of my blog club and those were for cards. I have a different kind of scrapbook style so I don't know if you all will enjoy this but I wanted to share.

As always, click the pictures to see larger.

             

I'm in love with this paper from Archiver's in Memphis...I do one 12X12 album a year, with 1 double page layout for each month (there are months with more than one but I try to make sure there is at least one for each month). I keep an 8x8 for my daughter's school and an 8X8 of vacations as well.        

                                 

Anyway, I hope you all get in on the **giveaway** in the post below. If you haven't already, scroll down and enter. :)

Now I have a question for my wonderful readers. What do you think of the new widget I added? It's the "link within" thing right below this text. It shows previous entries to this blog that are related or interesting randomly. Do you like it?

Random Paper Crafts

I've been organizing my stamps and things and toucing them makes me want to craft like crazy. Here's some recent projects.

                                        

First up, cupcake card. Maya Road stamps. Bazzil brown and Paper Temptress Pop Tone Pink. I love cupcakes, in case you didn't know already. lol!

                                           

Next, we have a little notepad project. All PaperTemptress paper. Rub-on is SU!. The pen is a scrap of paper rolled up and slid down in.                                     

                                       

Last in for this post is a fun card using Bazzil and Gel-a-tin stamps. I just love the tree stamps. By now you know that the sparkle paper is Paper Tempress and the ink is SU! To get the fade on the stamp you just rub different colored inks on different parts of the stamp. Green in the middle and chocolate chip around the outside. If you overlap them a little you get the fade effect. 

    

Click for larger pictures. Thanks for visiting. If you have any ides for March's giveaway I'd love your input!! Thanks blog readers.                                             

Coupon Organizer

So it's 2009 and I have some goals. One of them is to start using coupons. Everyone can use to save a few bucks right? More money for craft supplies. lol. So, this is a file folder, folded and covered in pretty paper (scraps). The ribbon is from SU! I printed the shopping list, notes and to do list on my computer using MS Word.

           

I left the cover kind of plain because I like the pattern so much. Click the pictures to see larger. As if you didn't know by now.  :)           
          

I have a couple questions for you all:

What are our goals for 2009?

What would you like to see in the giveaway this month?
I am doing 2 pendants but have no idea what else to include!!

The instructions for folding are located here. Thanks for visiting!

Scrapbook Word Album

Here's my very first attempt at a word album. It's all bazzil cardstock. My next one will be out of chipboard. Because of my limited supply of cb I wanted to make the first one out of cardstock. I will decorate it further. I do most of my decoration after the pictures are on. Any suggestions are welcomed. I winged this one, if you have instructions please post a link so that my readers and I can see a real tutorial. I used my Cricket Expression and the Printing Press cartridge for the letters.

 

My little girl helped me out with the colors and decorations you see. We were all shocked that it isn't completely pink. lol! I guess the giant pink flower makes up for the blue and green. I plan on making a few of these as gifts for other little girls. Maybe a fun birthday party craft for big girls?

There's an unfinished inside page. The flowers are prima and the paper ones are cut from c.e. cartgidge Doodlecharms. That's my daughter's favorite one. Click for larger pics.    :)   Have a crafty day.

Coaster Mini Book

We went to Chili's and asked for a few extra coasters. They were happy to supply them. :) Here's how easy this is. Pick where you want the hole. I reccomend using the "old school" eyelet hole punch. The kind you use with a hammer, if you have it. If you don't it will still work it will just be harder on your hands. Punch one coaster at a time. With the hammer set I used the one with the hole stacked on top off the others to make sure hte hole is in the same place on every coaster.


I used all scraps to make this album. :) As you can see I have several Chatterbox scraps. I didn't over embellish this album because I am not exactly sure what I'm doing to use in it yet.


The binder clip can be purchased anywhere from Office Depot to WalMart. This is a 1 1/2" clip, I'm pretty sure. Once i'ts all done I'm planning on adding some ribbon to the clip. Hope you like it. Click for larger pics.

Strawberry Boxes

This is a cute little pattern for a small box that looks a little like a strawberry. ;) These are great for a few small treats or favors. You can use ribbon, twine, string or just about anything else to tie these. I did them with white string and a knot. You can tie a bow with a tag or anything you like on the top.

I was just plaing around with scraps so these aren't my final papers for the finished project. Just testing.

Please click the pattern image to get the full sized image. The image is scanned in full size so simply right click on the big picture to save it. Print to fit the page and there you go.



Score on the dotted lines, cut on the solids. Fold the tab in and glue it. I popped the holes with a sewing pin. If you're going to use ribbon you should use the eyelet hole punch to make a larger hole.

I reccomend criss-crossing the string as you're threading it through the holes. If you start at one end and work around in the circle it will be harder to close. Working in a star pattern is the easiest in my opinion.

If you do 2 green things on the top curl one up and one down. It's really cute this way. Simple, cute little strawberry boxes. Click for larger. :)

So here's the pattern: