Easter Baskets

Seems my life has been crazy busy lately. So Sandie said I could share the baskets she made.

Aren't these baskets cute? Sandie Garcia one of my Stamp Club gals made them for her Easter Table. She used the Square Scallop die and cut 10 squares, and then used Temtex which takes the place of the batting. It reminds me of really stiff interfacing. She wanted the baskets to be stiff and this product worked perfect. Its hard to tell in the photo, but the fabric on the outside of her baskets looks like grass. She found this fabric in her stash (she's also a quilter). She also used the Flower Folds & Daisies #2 die to make the flowers out of fabric scraps she had. Sandie said these baskets went together really fast.

Anthony's Pirate Build a Bear Card

Today is my Grandson's 1st Birthday. My daughter and son-in-law are having a huge birthday bash this afternoon for him. We bought the Pirate Party Kit (page 74) and then my daughter took an old trunk and filled it with chocolate coins. (cost her a fortune, even after putting some boxes inside so she didn't have to buy so much chocolate), but it looks cute.

Staying with the "Pirate" theme, I made Anthony a Pirate Build a Bear. Now I didn't come up with this myself, I saw it on someone's blog. Just can't remember who. The back ground I used the Extreme Elements stamp set (page 81). I wish I had purchased the Beware Pirates stamp set, but Anthony really won't care. Tomorrow I will post more photos from Anthony's Birthday Party. You can click on the photo to see it better.

Elements of Style Baby Shower Invites

I'm making 40 of these for a baby shower my Son's Girlfriend is giving. This stamp set is: Elements of Style and I got it FREE for attending leadership in January. This set is in the upcoming Summer Mini Catalog. Oh my! its going to hurt when I place my pre-order on April 1st. You will be able to order on May 1st.

I started off with a Mellow Moss base. I roughed up the edges with our Cutter Kit (page 191 in big catalog) and used the distressing tool. Autumn wanted them to feel like it was natural, green. After I distressed the edges, I sponged Chocolate Chip all around the base. The image was stamped in Vanilla Craft Ink on Kraft card stock and embossed with clear embossing powder on our Top Note die. I trimmed the edges around where the stitching line is and matted on another Top Note in Chocolate Ship. After I embossing the stamped image I used a sponge dauber and sponged over the entire Kraft Top Note, then tore in a few places and curled the edges. Added a piece of Vanilla 5/8" Satin Ribbon (all of the satin ribbons in the Occasions mini catalog are carrying over to the next mini, Yeah!) I stamped the You're Invited in Chocolate ink on Kraft card stock. This stamp set I got for FREE from Sale-a-bration, its called, Introducing. I used this set on the inside as well. I punched out with the Wide Oval Punch and added a button from the Button Latte collection, with some Linen Thread. I almost forget the Medium Jewelry Tag stamped in Chocolate Chip on Kraft. I stamped Baby & Boy on each tag and used the Linen Thread to hang it from the Vanilla Ribbon.

I added a piece of Kraft Card Stock for the inside and stamped the, For, Date, etc. I also used the boat from Nursery Necessities.

Finished Bird House

Here is my finished Bird House. My Son's girlfriend is having a baby shower for her friend and I thought these would be so cute. She is going to put some nuts inside. Autumn wanted it to be a "natural" kind of shower, so I thought this is nature, right? The roof is 2" x 4" and I used the Scallop Trim Border that you can get for "FREE" with a $50 order until March 31st. This was cut from Mello Moss card stock, the Designer Paper for the bird is from the Sweet Pea Pack, (page 33 of the mini). And the bird house was cut from Kraft card stock using the Milk Carton die also in the mini (page 23). Don't have a Big Shot? (see page 194 of the big catalog). Why not? Its one of the BEST tools I own. You really need one of these babies.......Contact me, or shop 24/7, just click the button on my sidebar. I almost forgot, the bird and branch are the Extra Large Two Step Bird Punch. This is also another must have. Check out page 11 of the mini and see all of our new punches. I wasn't going to order the Bird Punch........then I starting see so many cute things using it. The wing makes great leaves & a tulip. So its not just "a Bird Punch", its so much more.

You can click on the links to download all the catalogs.

Milk Carton Bird House Tutorial

A few days ago I asked a question on how you could get out your goodies without damaging the milk carton. I wanted to make a Bird House using the milk carton die. I got several people offering suggestions, but the one I went with is from Michelle. Its so simple I have a mini tutorial. Basically you are going to make the bottom into a box. Here is how:

Here is what you get when you cut it out and fold all the score lines.

I cut the second tab (bottom) from the left side off. Take that piece and fold in half.

Take that piece and use snail on one half of the tab. Glue that piece to the end piece and cut the tab at the diagonal, both sides.

Now you can punch ( 1 1/4" circle punch) the hole for the bird house and add sticky strip. Notice that I put sticky strip on both sides of the carton.

You will also need to add sticky strip to both of the inside pieces.

Now you can see the tab, but when I get my bird and leaves adhered it will be covered up. I did make it a bit shorter. If you aren't going to use the punch you won't have to worry about cutting it smaller. This is what your milk carton should look like. Now decorate. Tomorrow I will show you what I did to my bird house. If you have any questions, please send me an email, I will be happy to answer any questions.

Craft Room

WOW! Thanks for all your kind words about my craft room. And yes if I could just stay up here all the time, It would be nice. But then reality sets in and I have to clean house, make dinner, watch my grandkids (which I don't mind)and spend some time with my husband (don't mind that either).

So if you are ever in my neck of the woods (Antioch, CA) be sure to stop by and come play in my craft room with me.

And a special thanks to Patty who started all this about my wonderful craft room. You always make me feel like a "Rock Star".

My Craft Room

I've had many people ask me about my craft room since Patty Bennett put some photos of my Scallop Square Rag Purses on her blog. So I finally got a chance to clean my room up and take some new photos. You can see my photos of the purse class here.

First some history; After our Son left home (for the last time) my husband took the wall out of two connecting bedrooms and made a huge craft room, with a mirrored closet at the end of the room. I put up some Decor Elements, flowers and the Create definition on the mirrors. I have a long counter where my Big Shot resides. I store my smaller dies, (Bigz, original, Impressions folders & Texturz plates) in our Forget-Me-Not Keepers (page 203 in the big catalog). These work out great and hold a lot of dies.

For the Bigz XL dies I found these drawers work out perfect. I found them at the Container Store.

As we move down further, this is where I sit and make my cards and other projects.

My card stock is stored in a cabinet without the doors and extra shelves. I've got them all labeled. My punches are on ribbon racks from Gershelbros.com. along with all of my Stampin' Up! ribbon. I have slot wall on the walls and these racks go in great. They will also work with peg board. My husband thought the slot wall looked better. We bought the slot wall at Home Depot in Sacramento, CA. which is about 50 miles from where we live in Antioch. Not all HD carry the slot wall. You can get baskets, and different sized brackets to go with the slot wall at HD and Gershel Brothers. I've found that I use my punches much more with them right in front of them.

This is my Media Center. I have my computer and a couple of printers. You can't really see them as they are behind the sample board.

I also have a bar sink which comes in really handy, even though I have a full bathroom across the hall.

On this wall is where I do my wreaths. (where the shopping bag is). I also have my "other" ribbon in larger basket holders, and a small table (seats 2) under the ribbon.

Here is where my customers sit for my classes. My classes are small, but that suits me just fine.

I can fit 6 people at the two tables, plus 2 where I sit.

Now you've seen my whole room. I have to say that I spend as much time up here as I can. If I only had a maid to clean my house and someone to fix dinner........I love my craft room and am very blessed to have a room like this, thanks to my very talented husband, Dave. He is the "Jack of all trades" and a electrical contractor by trade which he doesn't do much any more. He now manages many of the courts in Northern California. After years of abusing his shoulders and going up and down ladders his body just can't take that kind of abuse any more.

Haute Tote

I saw this purse here, and thought how cute they were, so I purchased the pattern. Doesn't this look like a designer purse? I wish I would have done some faux stitching before I adhered the handles, top piece and the round piece on the bottom. For my purse I used the Thoroughly Modern Designer Papers & the Chocolate Chip Epoxy Brads to hold the handles. Inside my purse holds 4 cards with envelopes. You will be seeing more of these on my blog. These would be such cute Mother's Day or birthday gifts. I can even see these in Christmas papers. Here are the cards I put in my Designer Purse.

The card base is Rose Red. I used a strip of the Thoroughly Modern dsp and used the Scallop Trim Border on both long edges. I stamped the flowers in Vintage Vogue with Soft Suede & Rose Red ink and cut them all out. Added a brad in the center of each flower and a dimensional to pop them up.

The card base is Soft Suede and a piece of Thoroughly Modern dsp and added a piece Soft Suede I used the Scallop Trim punch and adhered to the back of the dsp. I cut 2 layers of the 2 smaller flowers from the Flower, Daisies #2 die and sponged each piece and glued them together with the 2-way glue pen and added a Kraft Corduroy brad.

This card has a Rose Red base and more of the same dsp and a piece of the dotted Grosgrain ribbon punched out with the scallop trim punch and more of the flowers.

Soft Suede card base, punched out the side with the Scallop Trim punch and stamped the flourish in Soft Suede and then stamped the F onto Very Vanilla card stock and cut out. I also used the Flower Trio punch for the small flowers. I punched them from the dsp. and added brads to each one.

3" x 6" Super Simple Card

This is the coolest card ever! I found directions here. All you do is take two 6 x 6 pieces of Designer Series paper and fold them in half, glue together and turn down each top piece. In fact you can get this dsp FREE when you place a $50 order. This is the Welcome Neighbor 6 x 6 paper pad. So no cutting when you make this card. I added the heart embosslit (it embosses and cuts out the heart), a little pinking heart punch trim on the bottom of each turned down piece and a greeting. Can't get much easier than that!

Easter Treats

Check out these fun Easter Treats. I ordered the bags from here. Becky Robert's has made these for different occasions and I thought how great these would be to give out to everyone who helps you. So I'm going to give all of these away and probably make more. I put 25 M & M's in each long bag added a little tag using the Eggcoutrements stamp set in the mini (page 22) and tied it up with a small piece of ribbon.

I challenge you to make up some small treats to hand out to everyone you meet!

Scallop Square Quilted Purses

So as I said yesterday, I am going to share more of the purses everyone made on Sunday. Class was 10-3 or whenever we finished. They all brought a dish to share at lunch. We had a Mexican theme going and boy was it ever good!

Did you know that you can cut up to 8 layers of (cotton) fabric at a time? As long as the die doesn't have any fold lines and always use a paper shim. So you can see how fast you can make one of these purses. Now if you are using a die that has a fold, 3 layers of fabric and a paper shim will work without cutting the fold lines in the fabric.

Now check out these adorable purses.

This one was made by Patty (she's my upline) and she came to MY class. Notice she put pockets on each side so she could put her phone and camera in them. Such a great idea! She also used heavier fabric for her purse. She didn't want the shabby chic look and didn't clip in between the scallops like the other gals did.

The next purse Lynne Marini made. Her dog is a Boston Terrier so she made a purse to carry Sebastian's toys when he goes to visit Grandma.

Now the next one is made by Lynne Buschiazzo. Her purse is made of animal prints. And check out that cool button. She also made the inside of her purse all black. I love how that looks. Not as busy as the ones with the print on the inside as well as the outside.

The last purse is the Lori Trolson's purse. She used several different fabrics for her purse. Love the blue and yellow together.

I love how each purse came out so different, just by changing up the fabrics. I'd like to thank Angie Juda at Chic n scratch for her great tutorial. You can also view her YouTube video.

What a Week-end!

First I was invited by Karen Miller to be a vendor at her Church, St. Anthony's for a scrapbook event they were having. It was a small turn out, but such a nice bunch of ladies. This is the Easter Album they could do while visiting my table.

This is the cover. We used the Stampin' Up Exclusive Top Note Die, along with the Extra Large Fancy Flower punch, the Extra Large Two-Step Bird punch & the Beautiful Wings Embosslits die (these are all in the Occasions mini, except the Top Note die is in the main catalog.) For the flower we stamped in Pretty in Pink ink onto Pretty in Pink c/s using the flower in With All My Heart stamp set (I got this FREE for going to Leadership.) Then we punched it out and sniped in between each petal and curled it with a marker to give it more dimension, added one of our new Epoxy brads (page 13 in the mini) and adhered it using a dimensional. The bird is also punched out with pretty in Pink and then again with the Certainly Celery card stock (for the leaves) and again used a dimensional to pop it up. Do you see the Celery leaves behind the flower? Those are the wings from the bird punch, pretty cool isn't it? I should also mention that the Designer Series paper is Shades of Spring, isn't it beautiful?

Onto the next page. We stamped the Chocolate Easter Bunny in Chocolate Chip craft ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. The Easter Blessings we did the same and that is from the Abundant Hope (page 24 in the mini) stamp set. Stamped the "grass" in celery using the scallop stamp in the Eggcoutrements (page 22 in the mini)and cut out and sniped in between the scallops to separate.

Then the last 2 pages we just added a piece of Pretty in Pink card stock and Certainly Celery 5/8" satin ribbon, stamped the chick (Also in the Eggcoutrements stamp set) in So Safran, cut out and popped up with a dimensional. The next page is pretty much the same, just added Orchid Opulence card stock and white ribbon. (I didn't attach that photo).

I forgot my camera so I didn't get any photos of the gals making their albums. I do want to mention that Savanna & Audrey each made an album and had so much fun. They were delightful to talk to. So fun to see two teenage girls scrapbooking. Savanna won my small door prize and Joy won the big one I donated to the church for this event. They were both so excited they won.

Then on Sunday, I had 6 gals at my home to make the Rag purses from the Scallop Square Big Shot die. Boy, did we have a blast. Here is a sneak peak at a couple of their purses. I will share more tomorrow.

This one is Sandie's. She used 3 different colors of jeans material.

This one is Elisa's. She used I think it was 6 or 7 different fabrics. Both so cute!

Ghirardelli Chocolate Holder (directions)

So many of you have asked what die I used to make these Ghirardelli holders that I used in this post, I'm going to give you directions. This wasn't my idea. Thanks go to Kay Sha.

You start out with the Box #2 die. Cut your card stock at 5 1/2" x 4 3/4" then position it (5 1/2" side touches the tip of the die) at the end of the die where the flap to close the box is located. Run it through your Big Shot.

This is the part of the die you will be using.

This is how your c/s should be on the die.

This is what your card stock will look like after you run it through the Big Shot.

Then you cut the other side to match the one on the die.

Now fold on the score lines and decorate.

I made a template so I don't have to think too hard for my next one. If you have any questions please email me. cindee@pacbell.net.