Month: November 2009

A: Jenni Bowlin’s November kit. (sigh)

I purchased it for 2 reasons:

1. Red damask exclusive rub-on. I needed it. I need to do a whole post about this rub-on design. (noted & added to my to-do list)

 2. 3 sheets of core’dinations cardstock included. If you are a regular reader then you know I’ve been doing quite the impatient dance waiting for this product.

It helped of course that the rest of the kit was lovely and I wanted to use the new papers and such – and I’m glad I got it! It came in the mail and I made time to play a bit over the weekend…

FUN.

If you don’t know – Core’dinations makes cardstock that has a ‘core’ that is different in color from what you see – so if you sand it the other color shows through. It is so fun. When I saw them paired with Jenni I freaked right out. I’ve been excited & anxiously awaiting the release ever since.

At this time I’d like to make a request for MORE. To be helpful, I’ll suggest a mossy (think Savannah in spring) green, a sea glass aqua, lilac, a rosy pink color, and also perhaps some rusty/coppery metallic tone too. Oh, understand I’ll be purchasing ANY color Jenni + Core’dinations get together and create. It’s that cool. I just know you’re supposed to put your wishes into writing to help them come true, so there you go.

Happy Crafting ~

May

PS- This cardstock will be great for holiday projects. I’m off to see what I can come up with.

The Adornit Christmas prize (from blog hop) goes to…. Tina Mayo

My handcrafted crafty kit pouch goes to…. Alicia Sharp

The Fiskars ornament punch goes to…. katemeri

Congrats ladies – e-mail  me your info – mflaum @ comcast.net and I’ll get your prize right out to you! I still have a few other prizes unclaimed (here) and I’m going to start the process of picking new winners for those from the posts. So good luck if you’d entered to win but didn’t get it!! If your name is up on the prizes list and you haven’t heard back from me please e-mail me again. I’ve e-mailed & shipped to everyone who contacted me.

Happy Monday everyone!

When Georgana announced she was going to have an Adornit “make it merry” blog hop and wanted people to participate I jumped right in. Who doesn’t love a blog party? She also asked me to host a give-away! That’s right – one of you will win a collection of Adornit Christmas Supplies. Be sure to leave a comment on this post so you are entered to win! I will draw a winner Monday the 16th.

and since when do I say no to anything Christmas related?

If you are visiting me first (or don’t know about this cool hop) you can follow the blog-hop trail beginning to end by visiting here: http://www.adornitscrapbook.com/bloghop/ We’ll each be linking to the next person’s blog – so if you start at #1 you will go all the way through! (How fun is that???)

Now the really fun part. I’ve gotta “make merry” to share with you here. I couldn’t quite decide so I’m sharing both of my ideas!

So November is always very MERRY here because I do a lot of holiday prep so that I have a more restful, family oriented, cherish all the details and moments December rather than rushing through the holidays.

Step #1: Photo to include in cards.

I’m going to try and get them together, but if not something like this will do. When I had 3 dogs they were much easier to get attentive faces looking in my direction at the same time. If I waved a milkbone and had good natural light a fabulous photo was guaranteed. These two? GAAAAAAH! Not even chocolate could get them to behave together. But I could get one or the other, and so I think I’ll creatively combine like shown here to get the best possible pics.

Of course I had to scrap the outtakes.

I used mostly Pink Paislee mistletoe & co line. Have I mentioned I love that line? I do. I know it doesn’t have green in it like traditional lines and I love that. LOVE. Why? Because I always have trouble matching up greens. 

I made the photo strips in photoshop, but you could insert/resize pics in a word document for same effect. It’ll just take longer. Another thing you should know – I de-saturated my photos by about 50%. I just ADORE playing with saturation. When somebody’s face is super red or colors are just wild I pull the little bar down until it feels right. Plus it give kind of a “ye olde times” look I LOVE. I actually didn’t NEED to do it for this page. I just wanted to.

I have more fun with the photos not used for ‘official holiday photo’ vs the one that does get used. I love looking back at layouts from previous years and seeing how the subjects – and photography – changes.

I want some cocoa and holiday decorations now please.  So in the mood.

Well, maybe I could use some leftover rub-ons to show you something else instead…

So I was in Borders and “aw how cute”-ing over their felt gift card bags. But then I was like… “I could so totally make my own!” and I have been. What would make a gift card more personal than a special made with love bag or packaging? Just think- tuck a sweet little note in there with it and it’s all warm & fuzzy and not at all impersonal. You can see my first attempt HERE, and today I want to show you my third and newest one.  

So I really liked the envelope that this gift card came in because it’s got a spot for a note and some details like value of card inside. I wanted to keep it so I sized my holder around it. I folded a piece of felt over (so that when I cut with acrylic ruler + rotary blade it’d be front + back, and so I don’t have to stitch bottom) and cut so that I had about 1/2″ WIDER than the gift card. (felt size cut is 4 1/2 x 11)

Then I set it aside and went to work on a decoration for the front. I had a scrap of sticky-back canvas that I decided to use with some rub-ons to make a cute and quick decoration. Now the rub-ons were not going to stay on forever to that canvas so I coated lightly with glue.

Then, feeling the Christmas flow I added some white glitter to give it a snowy look. LOVE!

The adhesive back of the canvas works great to hold it onto the felt – but I still advise stitching or it’ll fall off. I folded up a scrap of fabric to use as a handle and attached it before sewing up the sides too – see below.

Now you’re ready to sew some lace! Sew the top/front first – THEN sandwich lace between the sides and stitch them shut.

note: if you’re spazzy like me you’ll forget to leave enough lace on BOTH sides of the top for sides. It’s ok. Just add more and overlap to disguise your whoops.

One more tip – I left a bit more (about 1/2″) lace than I needed on each of the ends so that I could tuck them in and not have a raw edge hanging out.

Here’s the inside-out view –

Well, you’re done! At this point I felt the need to stitch a red bow on the front, but really the thing about this project is that you could simplify to the point of just hand stitching both sides – or create whole felt piecings complete with beads hand sewn onto the front.

Whatever you do – just enjoy putting some hand-crafted love into your holidays. Before I go I’d like to share a few of the merry things I used today – and a few things that help me enjoy my holiday crafting time.

• Heather Bailey’s felt – it’s so very nice and really makes me want to craft with felt so much more.
• Pink Paislee’s christmas collection – I think the scrap police are gonna fine me for using too much of it this year!
• Sticky Back canvas by Claudine Hellmuth – so great for so many things
• Peppermint Bark (Ghirardelli or Williams Sonoma kinds)
• German Glass glitter – seriously makes a world of difference
• Harry Connick Jr Christmas songs
• Visiting blogs for new ideas & inspiration

That’s all from me – don’t forget to leave a comment here so you’ll be entered to win goodies from Adornit!!! When you do go – be sure to go check the next blogger on the merry hop – http://www.jenniekader.blogspot.com/

I love it when I get an e-mail that inspires a page. I got a note from a kits class student saying that she was going to be scrapbooking her son (in military) today & I got inspired to scrapbook a photo that I hold dear.

I’ve scrapped this photo before, and I’ll likely do it again too. It’s a tiny picture my aunt gave me when my uncle passed away (about 12 years ago now) that I keep up on a special shelf. He was a Marine, and I love the photo of me at about two and him so young and in uniform. It makes me smile and since I don’t have too many photos of my uncle I re-use the photo when I have more feelings or stories to tell. I scanned it, used photoshop to put it on a Katie Pertiet photo mask and printed it onto Claudine Hellmuth’s sticky back canvas.

Then I cut it out (used a deckle rotary blade) and pulled out my November Studio Calico kit and got to work. 

At this point of my creative process two things happened. 1. I realized I was going to need some non-kit supplies, 2. I was reminded just how much I wish my uncle had gotten to know my family. Him and Jason would have liked each other so very much. (sigh) Ah- but that’s why I scrapbook photos with my uncle. To let my kids know about this special man and to honor his memory.

Unless you’re on the kit club’s design team or for some reason obligated to use ‘the whole kit and nothing but the kit’ I see no reason to put up any creative walls. When I’m working if I’m thinking “gee wiz, wish I had some textured flowers or ribbons right about now” (or whatever) I go pull it out of my stash. WAY better to get it used than not, right?!

So I pulled out a flower, some leaves, glitter, and a bit of felt ric rac. Oh, and some bakers twine.

One of my new favorite techniques is to use a zig-zag stitch to hold down the twine. I *LOVE* doing that. I discovered this love while putting together my kits class. I’d never before done it but the twine was in a kit and I wanted to use it in that way. Don’t you love when you figure something out like that?

Just center it up – and stitch. Easy & I think it’s cute.

A special thanks to all our veterans out there – and as always those currently serving and all their families.