My first post is going to be about what I have been working on over the past couple of weeks. My youngest son, my baby (sniff, sniff), is leaving in a couple of weeks for Marine boot camp, and we had a 5th Sunday dinner at our church this morning. I had asked the church if it would be okay to include a "send-off" for him into our church dinner and they said it would be fine. We're a pretty close church family so I new it would be. :) I have spent the last two weeks planning and making all kinds of cute stuff based on ideas that I got from other crafters' sites and YouTube. Where I can remember the original locations, I'll link you up with them.
One of the first things I decided to work on was some patriotic cards that I could send my son throughout his time at Parris Island. I also decided it would be great if he could hear from some of our church family from time to time as well. So I decided to make little note cards that can be included with my notes to him. I laid them out on the tables in the fellowship hall along with some pens so that friends and family could write a little message before they left this afternoon. It went over very well. Here is the first card I'm going to be sending along with some of the blank note cards. The base paper for the card and note cards is Very Vanilla from Stampin' Up. My dealer, I mean my demonstrator is Lisa Marie Smith and she's awesome! She's from Crestview, FL so if you're local and looking for a fun time, get some friends together and arrange to do one of her classes. I have linked her Stampin' Up site to her name above. You can also just order from her online if you live too far away for a class.
Another project is a tile with vinyl lettering. I love, love, love this one! I got the tile from Lowe's for less than a dollar and the vinyl is from The Paper Studio. I got it from Hobby Lobby. (I seriously love Hobby Lobby! You'll see that I get a lot of my supplies from either them or Lisa Marie.) I'm not sure I like that vinyl for this project, though. It works okay on glass and other surfaces, but it was really hard to get it to stick to the tile. I think I'll stick with Oracle for tile projects from here on out. A great place to get craft vinyl in all kinds of colors and styles is the Vinyl Super Store. Her prices are great! She had an eBay store at one time, but I don't know if she still does. I got a great deal on a whole bunch of vinyl from her on eBay once and now just order as I need from her regular store site. The actual cutting file is an SVG file that I bought from My Vinyl Designer. It's PA019 and it was ONLY $1.95. Doesn't it look just awesome!?! Whoever designed it did a wonderful job. :) I have bought several of their designs and buyer's remorse never visits my craft room after a purchase from them. I used my Sizzix Eclips (that my ever so spectacular husband bought me for Christmas last year) and used eCAL, which is the Sure Cuts a Lot version made especially for the Eclips. Both the Eclips and eCAL were purchased from Oh My Crafts. I do have a Cricut Expression, but I highly recommend having more than one means of cutting shapes for projects if you're dealing with Cricut since they're so picky about having to use only their cartridges. I have a ton of their cartridges, but sometimes you just need one shape and don't want to have to own a whole cartridge just to get it. You can get free cut files all over the Internet or purchase some for a small fee from some really talented people who don't care what you use to cut their designs with. (Can you tell I have a soap box handy to stand on when I talk about this topic? LOL)
Wow! This is a REALLY long first post. Apparently, there has been a blogger inside me screaming to get out for a long, long time. I promise future posts won't be quite so long. How could they be? There won't be much left to share when I get done with this one. ;)
Just a couple more projects to go. I'll make it quick and painless, I promise. The first one is one I saw on Pinterest. I can't remember what it was called, though. I visited the blog site but forgot to save it. I'll try to find it and share it in a future post. She has some really cute stuff. She had mason jars with treats in them and these really cute layered stars hanging from the lid in rustic Christmas paper. I decided to make some stars like hers with the same paper I had used for the cards and notes. Here is what I did with them. Aren't they pretty?
One of my favorite crafters is Diane Hill. You can find her fantastic videos on YouTube and/or visit her site paperpastime.blogspot.com. She's phenomenal! (manamana do do do do do manamana do do do do) Sorry. Channeled the Muppets there for a second. Anyway, one of her videos is about making barn stars with scrapbook paper. The ones she did were in solid colors, but I decided to use the same scrapbook paper that went with my patriotic theme and they turned out so great! Thanks, Diane! You don't know me, but I am a huge fan. That's not creepy, is it? :)
Last but not least............my favorite project, because it was the MOST FUN to make! The rosette wreath. (cue trumpets daah da da daaaaaah!) I got the idea from Pinterest and then checked out videos on YouTube for how to make the best rosettes. I had made a couple in my Stampin' Up hostess class last year about this time. I loved them so much that I kept them in the forefront of my mind this WHOLE time looking for a project where I could use a bunch of them all at once. Someone pinned this adorable wreath in spring colors for Easter over the summer and an idea was born. I was going to do a Fall wreath for my mother-in-law's birthday, which is coming up this Thursday. A hem (cue sheepish look). I don't think I have the energy to do it now after all the crafting I've done the past couple of weeks. I am a middle school science teacher, and 9 weeks' exams are coming up so my focus needs to shift back to non-craft related topics for the next week or so. Who knows? I might come in from work tomorrow evening bright-eyed and bushy-tailed looking for some paper to score and fan-fold. Stranger things have happened. LOL! Anyway, I used the same gorgeous patriotic paper that I have used throughout. By the way, I don't think that I mentioned that the patriotic paper I've been using is from The Paper Studio, which is probably my favorite line of scrapbook paper in the entire world. No, I haven't seen ALL the paper in the ENTIRE world, but I think that if I had, I would still love The Paper Studio's paper best. I'm never disappointed in the quality of the end product when I use their paper. Running a close second (a very close second) is Stampin' Up paper. The colors are so pure and I love how their scrapbook designer paper matches with their inks/markers/plain paper colors/ribbon/embellishments. You can't go wrong with either brand. I've lost my train of thought...........oh, yeah! The rosette wreath! Isn't it pretty? I'm just in love with it! It looks really good with those barn stars, too, doesn't it.
So thanks to all the great crafters that gave me these wonderful ideas to work with and to the great craft supply companies that give us so many wonderful products to work with and my awesome husband, who puts up with the sounds of my paper trimmer, Cricut, and Eclips during his favorite television shows. You have helped me to put together a fantastic collection of projects that we can all enjoy.
Okay. So, I broke my promise of a quick and painless finish to my first post. Well, I hope it was at least painless if not quick. Thanks for visiting........I hope someone visits...........and doesn't give up when they see how long it is.................and comes back for more...........<3
