"Dad" card

Last year I made hybrid cards for our fathers for Father's Day:

I started with a simple 5.5" x 8" rectangle and added a 5" x 7.5" mask in the center. This allowed me to easily layer two papers to create the background. I printed these onto white cardstock, cut to size and scored it at the 4" line to create the fold.

Next, I opened a pennant flag element from the Give Thanks kit and added "DAD" using brushes. I printed these onto white cardstock as well, cut out and then adhered to the cards with adhesive backed foam to give the design a bit of dimension.

Simple as that and they each had a beautiful handmade card.

Are you making cards this year? I'd love to see. Share a link to the post or image in the comments section. :)

Supplies: Give Thanks & Happy Camper kits by Sara Schmutz; Digi Essentials 8 by Karla Dudley; white cardstock; adhesive backed foam.

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Baseball Birthday

In December, Trent, Dylan & I stopped by the Durham Bulls Athletic Park for the Holiday Open house. One of the perks turned out to be an opportunity to buy old stadium signs. While thumbing through the options, an idea hit me - one of the signs would make a perfect first birthday gift for one of the boys in our playgroup. His parents are big Bulls fans and we had all attended a game together last spring. When I found a sign for Section 216 (his birthday is today, 2/16!) I knew we had to buy it.

I made a baseball themed card to match using both digital and traditional scrapbooking supplies I had on hand.

I had printed several pieces for embellishments, but wasn't pleased with the look of all of them. Thus, I grabbed some blue paper from my scraps bin and cut it freehand. Then used my sewing machine to stitch it on. For the star, I had envisioned a chipboard piece but didn't have any. I did have an old frame of chipboard shapes from Basic Grey on hand. I traced a star onto an old coffee cup sleeve, cut it out, bent it up a bit for a rough leather-ish look and tacked it on with a brad. Honestly, it's my favorite element on the card.

Not the most traditional gift & card for a first birthday, but it seemed to fit just right. :)

Supplies: Recollections card & white cardstock; Sara Schmutz's No 1 Fan kit; Bazzill cardstock; patterned paper; Coats & Clark thread; coffee cup sleeve; Making Memories metal brad.

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Snowflake Baby Shower

Another baby joined our playgroup last week, so naturally we had another baby shower. This time it was just us 6 mamas so we spent a few hours together on Saturday afternoon at a local spa. We started with treatments (massages, facials, etc) and then got back together for the celebration.

Since the party was in early January, we went with a snowflake theme. Rather ironic considering the weather that day was mid-60s and sunny! Our centerpiece was a diaper cake topped with flowers & a large chipboard snowflake.

Knowing our friend was naming her son Mason, we incorporated Mason jars into our design as vases for white carnations (lesson learned: carnations are not in season in early January!) and for drinking glasses. After spotting an idea on Pinterest, Stacey cleverly made "redneck" wine glasses by gluing glass candlestick holders to the bottom of the jars. They made fun party glasses and favors.

To mark whose glass was whose, we attached tags with blue sheer ribbon. The tags were simple white cardstock with a snowflake punched, name handwritten in silver ink and the bottom torn.

We had lots of yummy things to eat ... fresh fruit, peanut butter celery, a cheese platter and some sweets. Allison made these incredible oreo cupcakes topped with snowflakes, of course!

And, as with the last shower, I made a single invite for the mama to add to the baby book.

Supplies - Invite: Recollections white cardstock; Miss Mint's Winter Sparkle kit (snowflake paper); Juice ITC font; Making Memories edge scraper; Autumn Leaves chipboard snowflake; Studio G silver ink; Bazzill cardstock. Other: ribbons, Michaels; Paper Reflections tags; Marvy snowflake punch; Mason jars & candlesticks, Dollar Tree; snowflake placemat, thrift store; snowflake cupcake toppers, Party City; letter blocks, Pottery Barn Kids.

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Pumpkin Tea Shower

On Saturday my playgroup moms had a shower for our friend Allison who is expecting her second son in mid-December. We really enjoy tea time (Tea & Trucks Baby Shower and Afternoon Tea) and with a small party of 7, decided that an afternoon tea at the Washington Duke Inn in Durham was the perfect setting. Afternoon tea there is elegant on its own, but this was a party so we added a few little fall details with a pumpkin theme.

The place settings were little pumpkins painted in glittery blue spray paint topped with ribbons (credit to Stacey for this incredible idea and making them reality!). Each also had a small tag attached with a ribbon. The tags initially marked each seat but then were used to mark our tea pots so we could easily tell which tea was which.

The seat of honor was designated with balloons.

Alicia worked her magic again and made a spectacular diaper cake that functioned as the table centerpiece as well as a wonderful gift.

The favors were cookies with little pumpkins on them of course! (Lauren is a whiz in the kitchen!)

Finally, the invite. Ok, confession, I only made one and it was strictly made as a keepsake for the little guy's baby album. We're all very much looking forward to meeting him in just a few short weeks! :)

Supplies- Invite : Recollections white cardstock; Script MT Bold font; Micron pens; watercolors; Die Cuts with a View patterned paper.

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Elmo & Numbers

I've had fun creating cards and crafting birthday gifts for Dylan's friends. At 2, they are all beginning to have fun little personalities. The latest celebration was this past weekend and I knew there were two things this little guy likes - Elmo and numbers. Elmo is an obsession. ;) And in the last few months I've been so impressed with his number recognition. First I caught him pointing them out so his mom would say the names out loud. Now he tells us what numbers he sees. Those things are what inspired his card and gift.

I combined both for the card using an image I found of Elmo online and resized. Then I made the numbered paper using a digital kit. I resized and recolored the numbers element to work with my design.

Supplies: Stampin' Up cardstock (red); miscellaneous cardstock (white & black); Elmo image found online; Karen Funk's One Year Older elements; Creative Imaginations patterned paper.

For the gift, I made him two sets of felt flash cards following this tutorial on Sew Much Ado blog. Each set is on its own binder ring. He can play with one or both, flip them upside down to play a matching game, etc. As soon as he pulled the cards from the gift bag, he began flipping through them and saying each number aloud. I'm going to take that as "I like it!"  :)

Supplies: various colors of felt & matching threads; grommets; 2" binder rings; template.

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Happy Mother's Day!

A very happy Mother's day to all moms! Wishing you a wonderful day.

Here's the card I created this year. It started out as a digital design that I printed onto a white card and covers the front & back.

I reprinted the butterfly alone onto a second sheet of white cardstock. Hand cut it using my x-acto knife. Inked the edges, scored the wings along the body and glued to the card. The result:

Supplies: Recollections white card; Design House Digital's iNSD Designer Blog Hop collaboration kit; Karla Dudley's Digi Essentials 2; Commerical Script font; Stampin' Up! Daffodil Delight ink.

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Tea & Trucks Baby Shower

I am very blessed to have made wonderful friends during a prenatal water aerobics class I took two years ago.  Six of us have maintained a close friendship and playgroup with as many of us as possible getting together at least once a week.  Altogether we began this adventure with 5 boys and 1 girl.   2011 is bringing at least 2 more little boys to the group with one little one making his arrival almost two weeks ago and another expected this month.  Of course, this kind of excitement needs a party so the other four of us decided to host a shower for the two friends expecting.

We ended up with a tea and trucks shower.  That is, a lovely afternoon tea for the ladies with a touch of boy inspired fun of trucks tossed in.  It worked out so well and everyone had a great time. Here's a peek at the details ...

On the island in the center of the kitchen, we set out a variety of tea cups and teas for the guests to select from along with sugar, honey, lemons and cream.

The food was arranged on the kitchen table.  We had a lovely assortment - quiches, sandwiches (cut into train shapes - so cute!), deviled eggs, fresh fruit, cheese, cupcakes and a dirt pie served appropriately in a dump truck with a shovel. ;)

Off to the side of the kitchen island from the teas, were small guestbooks for each of the moms with cards left out for the guests to write a note and adhere to the appropriate book.

Next to the guestbooks was a toy dump truck containing tea bag favors for the guests.

Credit goes to Allison for coming up with the great idea for the personalized packaging for the bags.  She sent me a sketch and I ran with it in Photoshop.  The result were simply adorable little packets that we added Tazo tea bags to.  One side had an image of a dump truck with the words "It's a Boy!" above it.  The opposite side had the name plus "Rolling into town / [month] 2011."

The gifts were displayed next to the fireplace in the adjoining living room.  A diaper cake denoting each mom's side with a slightly different twist based on their personalities.  Alicia did a fabulous job creating those!

Supplies: throughout - Bazzill Basics Paper cards, Reflections white cardstock, Amienne font; Invitations - miscellaneous blue & green cardstock, QuicKutz onesie die, Momenta stickers, adhesive backed foam, ribbon; Instructions for favors & guesbooks - Momenta stickers; Guestbooks - chipboard, binder rings, QuicKutz onesie die, Momenta stickers, Making Memories edge scrapper, Ellie Lash's Detour kit, Mod Podge; Tea Bag Favors - Ellie Lash's Detour kit; staples, Tazo teas.

Linking up to Tip Me Tuesday at Tip Junkie.

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Little Face

Oh how I do so love this little face ...

Each photo represents a week in Dylan's first year of life from a few hours old (top left) to celebrating his first birthday (bottom right). I love seeing them all together and how much has changed and how much has stayed the same. 

I've been working on this page off and on for months.  Picking the photos and arranging them in the template was the easy part.  I was slow piecing the rest together.  The final detail - the stitching - came earlier this week.  I felt like the page was missing something.  I decided to use my sewing machine to sew a frame around the photos.  I intentionally did not make straight lines - I think it's more fun and has more character with a little slant to it.

Supplies: Recollections kraft paper; Déjà Views sticker; Making Memories date stamp & washer; StazOn black ink; Stampin' Up cardstock; Paislee Press template; patterned papers; Little Yellow Bicycle brad; Heidi Swapp acrylic heart; staples; brown thread.

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DIY: Hybrid Gift Tags and a Freebie

In need of tags for your holiday gifts?  Look no further than your digital scrapping kits!  Here's how I made a set to use for the boxes of ginger snaps I gave to friends last week...

In Photoshop, I set up a template of circles sized to fit inside my 1-1/2 scallop circle punch.  I selected digital papers and masked them using the template:

Printed the tags onto cardstock:

Then used my scallop punch to punch out each one:

After punching a small hole in the top of each tag, I added a red eyelet:

Finally, I wrapped each container of ginger snaps with ribbon and finished them off with my tags:

Now, as my gift to you ...  click here to download the Circle Gift Tags template for free (note: it contains only the 8 circle masks - no digital papers).  Enjoy!

Supplies: ivory cardstock; Rhonna Farrer's Holiday Polka Packaging kit; 2paws Designs's Circle Gift Tags template.

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Hybrid Airplane Birthday Card

Dylan and my dad both share a love of planes.  Thus, an airplane card seemed perfect for my dad's birthday last month.  I had fun mixing my digital and traditional supplies (even digging through my scraps) to put together this cute hybrid card:

I started with a plain white card (I have a whole pack of these I bought at a craft store - so easy to decorate for any occasion).  I measured it and created a new page in Photoshop to match the size - 5.5 inches wide by 8 inches tall.  I added a guide to mark the horizontal center (ie, the fold) and then filled the area beneath it in white to create a mask for the front of the card design.  Next I added the digital cloud page onto a new layer.  I used the transform tools to rescale it and then clicked Ctrl-G to create a clipping mask.  I also changed the opacity to 80% to lighten the image a bit.  Then I printed it out on the card.

My original intent was to have the cloud paper print full bleed to the sides and end.  Unfortunately, it came out with white borders.  I decided to continue ahead with the borders but you could easily play with your printer settings to correct that and even print the image to the entire outside of the card (front & back) if you want.

The next step was preparing the stamped image.  I used black ink to stamp the plane onto three scraps of paper - white, red and yellow.  I cut out the various plane parts from the red and yellow papers then glued them to the white.  After all the pieces were in place, I trimmed the white cardstock flush to the colored pieces.

Using the remaining white cardstock, I sketched out my design for a wavy banner and added the message with small rub-on letters.  It didn't quite fill the space so I adjusted my banner length and then outlined it with a fine tipped black marker.

I cut out the banner with my x-acto knife cutting just beyond the black lines. Using a straight needle, I punched two small holes in the corners on the straight end.  I threaded a single piece of black thread through them.  It spans the two holes in the back.  I pulled it outward and tied a knot.  Then glued the knotted end behind the airplane. Finally I used adhesive backed foam squares to add the plane and banner to the card.  On the inside I finished the sentiment off by stamping "happy birthday."

Supplies: white card; Kitty Designs Cherish kit; miscellaneous white and yellow cardstock; We R Memory Keepers patterned paper (red); Imaginisce stamp; StazOn black ink; Doodlebug Designs rub-on letters; Micron black pen; black thread; adhesive backed foam squares.

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DIY: Personalized Birthday Vase

One of my dear friends celebrated her 30th birthday yesterday.  On Saturday night, her husband threw a surprise party for her and a few of us girls worked ahead of time to add some special decorations to the table.  Since the gathering was at a restaurant, we needed to limit our decorations to the table.  The final idea consisted of 3 flower arrangements and 4 framed black & white photographs of the guest of honor.

The centerpiece was this flower arrangement:

It was inspired by this post I saw on The Chase Gang blog.  I loved the simple look of the decorative band with the year on it and the pop of the red flowers.  Here's how I recreated the look (click on any image to see it larger):

I started by designing the year tag.  My scalloped circle punch is 1.5 inches so it set the size for all the pieces.  Using Photoshop, I created a new page sized at 2 inches by 2 inches, 300dpi and placed guidelines at 1 inch horizontal & vertical to mark the center.  Using the elliptical shape tool, I placed a 1.375" red circle in the center.

Next I added a new layer and repeated the elliptical shape.  This time filling the circle black and sizing it down to 1.25". 

Now that I had both circles, I needed to add the dotted outline.  To do this, I created another new layer and this time added a 1.125" elliptical path.  Then selected the brush tool.  In the brushes palette, I chose to use a 9px brush with spacing at 200%.

Next, in the Paths palette, I click the button for "Stroke path with brush."  This automatically placed all those nice dots precisely around the tag. 

Then I added the number '30' in Edwardian Script font, centered it in the circle and printed the image out on photo paper.

Finally, I flipped my scalloped punch upside down and place the printed image in it right side up.  This way I could see that the two were aligned as I punched out the design.

For the decorative band, I couldn't find any patterned papers in my stash that were "just right."  Instead I grabbed a sheet of 12" solid black cardstock and cut a strip out that was 1.25" in height.  I set it out onto a piece of scrap paper, pulled out a swirl stamp and white stamp ink then randomly stamped the swirls all over the paper.

Once the stamp ink was dry, I wrapped the band around the vase for a "test" fit.  I lightly marked in pencil where the overlapping end hit the strip.  Removed the band.  Added adhesive to secure it into a circle and set it aside to let it firm up.  A short time later I attached the year tag using adhesive foam squares and slid the band back onto the vase.  Another friend added flowers and ta-da - a beautiful, personalized decoration & gift.

Supplies: glass vase; black cardstock; Autumn Leaves acrylic stamps - Rhonna Farrer's swirls v1; Stampin' Up! white craft ink; adhesive; photo paper; EK Success scalloped circle punch; Edwardian Script font.

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