Love You Mom digi kit

card front

facebook timeline cover

Page created with the pretty new kit,

Love You Mom, by JMC Designs at Scraps-N-Pieces.com.

This kit is 50% off until May 8th.

The page layout is based on the image below (found on pinterest,

actual link to template was no longer working)

and created with My Memories Suite 7. 

8.5 x 11 page

KIT CONTENTS

9 Cardstock -12 X 12 - 300dpi

8 Glitter Papers - 12 X 12 - 300dpi

15 Patterned Papers - 12 X 12 - 300dpi

9 WordArt

18 Extra Elements -

 50 Unique Elements -

:

Masculine 21st Birthday Card - VW Inspired

The card I made for my sons 21st birthday !

I wasn't quite sure what  I wanted to make.

 when I started this project.

It ended up evolving to somewhat resemble 

the brand new Volkswagen Golf GTI he bought himself !

 car images from the official Volkswagen site

It is an easel card.

I don't have exact measurements.

The finished card is approximately 5 x 7.

It started with a 21 I hand drew and hand cut,

then I just kept adding to it.

The sentiment is computer generated.

It is mounted on a couple layers of card stock

and a strip of chipboard. 

The sentiment strip needs a little bit of dimension

to catch the bottom edge of the card front

so it will stand up.

 I used acrylic craft paints brushed onto rubber stamps

to make the plaid background.

I cut the center out since there was no need

to paint the entire piece since most of it 

was going to be covered up. 

This was made to resemble the plaid inserts on the seats.

Snap Stamps were used to create the Happy Birthday

banner. It was stamped with Versamark ink and heat

embossed black. 

Real stitching on textured black card stock

resembles the stitched leather seats.

My faux screw head brads tutorial HERE

The hand drawn/hand cut 21 was run through

a birthday Cuttlebug embossing folder. 

He got a kick out of it when he realized what it was

meant to resemble.

Thanks for looking =) 

I'm entering my card in the following challenges:

Crafting By Designs - For The Men

Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

Stampotique Designers Challenge - SDC242 Masculine

PDE Linky Party - Anything Goes

The Sisterhood of Crafters - Birthdays

Mason Jar Votive Gift Sets

When I had to pack up my craft room during the major flooding last December, I came across some forgotten craft projects. I did donate a lot of materials (and am kicking myself for doing so !!!), but kept others so I could make them into something then donate them. I made eight of these oh-so-early-90's mason jar votive candle holders with coordinating gift cards and bags to donate to a local charity resale shop.

The cards and gift bags were craft it yourself kits I bought at Walmart years ago. They came with preprinted gift bags, cards, envelopes, various embellishments to decorate the cards/bags with and even included tissue paper. I painted most embellishing pieces with acrylic craft paints since I wanted some color (they are all kraft color die cuts). I attempted to ''antique"some of them, too.

I used a gingham design roller stamp with green ink on the envelopes and the insides of the cards.

New (old, but it was never opened) potpourri was placed in the bottoms of the mason jars. Scented votive candles were placed in small flower pot shaped glass votive candle holders that fit perfectly on the neck of the mason jar. Torn pieces of cotton fabric were tied around the necks and a painted wooden button was hot glued on top of the knot. I attached a note to each saying " Do not burn candle unattended."

Hopefully they will sell well for the charity shop, especially with Mother's Day coming up.

Thanks for looking :)


I'm submitting this project to a couple of websites I recently discovered Through The Craft Room Door and Crafting By Designs. I like that they have challenges open to all sorts of craft projects, not just cards.

Cross Stitch and Makeshift Frame

Here is a post to make many crafters either giggle or gasp in wonder at "What was she thinking?!"
Okay, it isn't THAT bad, really. On the plus side, I am reusing items that many people would have thrown away, so it is an earth friendly repurposing project in a way !


Back story:
The cross stitch piece that I found at a yard sale has been floating around in my craft dungeon for years, YEARS! In fact, it came with me when we moved from our first house. I never framed it then because I didn't have a nice laundry area. It wasn't even a room, just a washer and dryer in and old unfinished, cinder block wall basement. There were no finished walls or anything to hang it on. I knew this when I bought it, but it was cute and I thought maybe someone would want to use it if I finished it. No such luck. So, it was packed away and brought to the new even older, dungeon-ier basement in our 100+ year old house 17 years ago. Every now and again I'd come across it and think I should donate it, I'll never use it here because the laundry area in this old house is even worse than the last (it seriously is..... ick !).

When I had to pack up my craft dungeon due to the major flooding last December, I came across it once again. This time I set it aside knowing I was going to get rid of it, but I really wanted to frame it first. I didn't have a large square frame to fit it (they are pretty expensive to buy and have shipped here since there are none to be found where I live). I had the (not so?) bright idea to finally put to use the plastic box that held a scrapbook kit I bought several years ago. It was the perfect size. Trusty chipboard and heavy duty double stick tape was used to mount it. NOTE: it is best to use acid free mounting boards and adhesive to mount cross stitch pieces, but I was making due with what I had knowing it wasn't anything special to me.

The following are tips on how I did it

by myself with make shift items.  

By no means are these an exact way of 

how to do it or the way a professional framer would. 

The empty plastic packaging from a craft kit I bought

years ago. Perfectly sized to repurpose into a frame !

craftysahmiam.blogspot.com

Because it had depth, I made it into a "shadowbox" frame.

I inserted an old wash cloth and clothes pins.

The top had two holes so I ran paper twist ribbon through them. It really isn't a great way to hang it

since they are now on the front. My plan was to use it as a way to hang it, but the residue from the stickers on the actual front of the box would not clean off no matter what I used on them. It's almost like the adhesive reacted with the plastic and etched it, leaving cloudy splotches. So, I had to reverse the box making the back into the front. 

Use heavy duty double stick tape on the back of the 

matboard / chipboard you are going to mount the piece to.

 Acid free supplies are preferred.

There are also premade mounting boards

for the purpose of mounting fabric pieces of art. 

craftysahmiam.blogspot.com

Wrap the edges of the piece around to the back.

Line it up as best you can before starting.

Start in the center of each side and don't push it 

down onto the adhesive too firmly at first. 

You want it to be held in place on each side 

to make sure you have it centered as best you can

before really sticking it down in place. 

Once you are happy with the placement, 

attach the length of one side, then move to another.

Try to follow a line in the cross stitch fabric,

or some other point of reference on your piece,

to try to keep it even as you pull the edges around.

This is more noticable on certain pieces than others,

the fact that my hearts are not perfectly spaced along 

the wrapped edges throws it off visually a bit. 

It actually doesn't look too bad on the back ;)

craftysahmiam.blogspot.com

Finished wrapping the edges around to the back.

If you look closely, you will notice that it is not

perfectly centered / straight. I should have tightened 

it up (or loosened) in spots as I was wrapping to 

try to make it better, but over all it isn't too bad. 

 I slid it into the box and adhered the back of it

to the inside back of the box to hold it in place. 

craftysahmiam.blogspot.com

Thanks for looking :)



I'm entering my project into the Anything Goes challenges at
Through The Craft Room Door 
and
Crafting By Designs. 

Happy Mail For Me !

What a nice surprise: an email letting me know I had won a prize for a challenge I entered months ago ! The goodies arrived today. It was a mystery card making kit from Scrapping For Less (on facebook), Many thanks to them for sponsoring the challenge at Scrapbook Blessings Club :)

Little Moments digi kit

I LOVE the colors in the newest digi kit by Jodi at JMC Designs !

It is called Little Moments 

and is available now at Scraps-N-Pieces.com

 This layout is loosely based on the first April 2016 template challenge

by Double Trouble scraps at Scraps-N-Pieces.com 

I used My Memories Suite 7 to create this page,

simply adding shapes and embellishements to

recreate a layout similar to the jpg image of the

scrapbook layout shared in the template challenge forum.

As soon as I saw this new kit, I knew what I wanted to scrap -

a photo of my old 1979 Mustang coupe !!!! 

Poor old car has been sitting neglected in a barn for years now.

Can you find it in the top photo in the above layout ?

Sadly it is currently hidden by so much junk in the old barn.

Maybe one year it will be back out on the road.......

The above page was made in Photoshop Elements 10 using a 

free template from Mommyish.

I did reduce the opacity of the barn wood paper that

was inserted on top of a cream card stock background.

I really do like the wood look of the paper, 

but thought it needed to be a bit lighter for this layout.

I also had fun experimenting with extracting my
handwriting to create a transparent background png
"stamp" of the way I wrote my name way back when !
It took a little trial and error, but I'm happy with the result.

  

Note about the facebook timeline cover, first image shared:

   You can create a Custom layout in My Memories Suite 7

that will be perfectly sized for a facebook timeline cover / banner.

Choose DESIGN on the Welcome screen.

At the bottom of the pop up, you will see CUSTOM SIZE.

Choose pixels as your unit of measure

and type in 851 Width x 315 Height

then click CREATE.

You can also make them in Photoshop Elements.

Thanks for looking :)

Kit Contents: 

7 Cardstock - 12X12 300PPI

8 Journal CArds - 3X4 300PPI

24 Patterned Papers - 12X12 300PPI

and

72 Unique Elements

4 Arrows

Bird

3 Bows

Metal Bracket

Metal Brad

Butterfly

4 Buttons

Metal Camera

2 Clips

6 Flowers

3 LeaVes

2 Metal Bits

Metal Grid

Metal Heart

Metal Plate

Paper Star

WOoden Flower

4 Wooden Seals

Wooden Star

3 Circle Designs

3 Frames

2 Grunge/Paint

5 Ribbons

2 RicRac

2 Scatters

Staple

2 Stitchings

3 Strings

3 Tags

6 WordBits

Wire Swirl

THANKS FOR LOOKING :)

Fight Like A Girl Card

A card I made for my cousin.
The ribbon and background are gray for brain cancer awareness.

 This is one stamp set I'm happy to say I've never needed to use -

until now.

Thanks for looking !

Money Bouquet

Bouquet of roses made from real paper money !

A cousin of mine was diagnosed with brain cancer,

so monetary donations were accepted to help her family out.

 Remembering the money bouquet I made for her own

 daughter's bridal shower a few years ago,

an Aunt asked I make one for this particular cousin.

I wrapped a mason jar with a scrap of purple 

shimmery fabric from my years old stash.

A rubber band was used to hold the fabric in place

around the neck of the jar.

I then tied yellow grosgrain ribbon around it.

Not only did this dress up the vase, it hid the rubber band.

The tag was made with inks and stamps from Stampin' Up!

Yellow tissue paper was used as filler between the roses.

Roses made from dollar bills tutorial HERE.

I'm entering my rose bouquet made from real money

in the following challenges. Take a moment to look at

all of the fabulous design team projects and entries!

Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

pdelinkyparty.blogspt.com - Anything Goes

Crafting By Designs - Anything Goes

Thanks for looking ! 

 *  EDITED TO ADD BASIC STEP BY STEP PHOTOS  *

Easiest way to make the stems:

pull apart a cheap set of flowers.

You'll need crisp bills, floral wire and floral tape.

Wrapped wire isn't necessary, it's just what 

I hand on hand and used for this bouquet.

Choose a container and insert foam

in the base to hold the flowers, filler items.

I hot glued mine in place.

Making the petals.

Four or five petals per rose plus a center piece.

Stack the petals, alternating placement

and wrapping with wire between each addition.

Use a sharp tool to poke a hole in the plastic calyx

if there isn't enough room to run the wires between

the stem and the hole in the base of the calyx.

Wrap the ends of the wire onto the stem with

the floral tape.

I chose to use tissue paper as filler

on this particular bouquet.

I used old picks from my stash.

Stained Glass Iris Get Well Card

This is a card I made and gave to my cousin who was recovering from surgery. 

The colors coordinate with the money rose bouquet I made for her 

from money collected from relatives (I'll share tomorrow)

The image is an old one from Stampin' Up!

I heat embossed it in black

then water colored it with ink from my ink pads

and an aquapainter. 

The embossed background was made using a 

stylus and scoring board, scoring lines 

to create the lattice like background.

Old purple Offray satin ribbon from my stash.

Scallop edge border punch.

The color is so off in this photo (or perhaps it is my monitor?),
it is a white background.

Thanks for looking =)