Fa la la la laaa!

Lets "Deck the Halls" with a little bit of Christmas cheer. I'm not sure anyone can look at this layout and not smile at the cutest little Elves ever. This is the finished product.


I found the paper piecing pattern at My Scrap Chick. Couldn't resist them and the best part is it came in a bundle with a bunch more. Their names are Baxter and Bella, she has a whole series of patterns built around them. I imported them into my SCAL program, adjusted the size so the heads were almost 2 inches big and cut them out using my Cricut. The tree I guessed at resizing and then Cuddle bugged for extra dimension. I also decided to decorate the tree with some paper flowers.


Here's a close up of Bella. I just hand drew her eyes and the marks inside the bells. I didn't think they would cut well, nor did I want to try gluing them on. I highlighted some spots with a white gel pen and she was done.


Here's Baxter. He's actually wearing little overalls, so cute. Again I hand drew his eyes and the bells. I used some chalk on his cheeks and nose.


The title is my favorite font right now: CK Jolly Elf. It welds so nicely. The shadow-blackout feature in SCAL makes it easy to pop dot the words for a fantastic title. I added a few white gel pen details. Some simple stitching on my photo mats. Just a little touch that I think adds a lot.


I hope these two help put you in the holiday spirit. Let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for visiting.

CHIRP CHIRP!

So today's adventure will involve Freezer paper, your iron, a Cricut and some fabric paint. It's like having your own silk screening machine. And it's FUN! So you'll want to pick a design and then decide if your using words. If you are you'll need to flip the letters and spell backwards. Yep you'll need a mirror image of your words. Now if you have DS this is pretty easy, if you don't it may take a little more work on your part.

So you've decided on a design and you've cut your Freezer paper to 12x12. You need to apply it shiny/waxy side up. Otherwise it won't stick to your mat. The blade depth I used was a 4 and the pressure was med (3) and the speed was med (3). I also recommend a good mat. You don't want it too sticky but it needs to hold the paper well. I had a lot of tearing when the mat was a bummer one. Cut your image and heat up that iron. Center your image and iron it in place. Now it's important to have to steam function turned off and you'll iron with the waxy side down. Iron all the negative pieces into place. I strongly recommend a piece of cardboard inside your shirt. The paint may bleed a bit and we don't want it on the inside of our shirt.

I used Scribbles fabric paint from Mike's or Jo's, it cost about $1.20 a bottle. You'll need a foam paint brush too. (Double check all your edges, you won't want any bleeding.) I put a line of paint inside all the letters and shapes, then using the foam brush spread it around until I covered the space totally.


Give it a couple minutes and then go back to make sure you've covered everything completely. Do any necessary touch up. The directions on my paint recommended letting the paint dry for 4 hrs. OK. I gave it an hour and it was dry to the touch. After 4 hrs I peeled the eye parts out and painted them.


Thought it was white paint but it was glitter and picked up the color of the shirt. OK we have glittery eyes on our bug. Still really cute. Next time I will start with the eyes, then paint the face with the glitter and then the dark outline last. You can just keep ironing the paper pieces back into the right positions. So cool.




And finally the back. I didn't have it quite centered but if you know me you know I'm a bit off anyway. And if you forget to flip the question mark, you have a really fun conversation piece on the back of your shirt.

I learned a few things while experimenting with this process:
1. Have patience and correct things that are wrong
2. Check your paint colors before you start to paint.
3. At $1.20 it's OK to buy an extra tube or 2 of paint to make sure you have the right color.
4.The foam brush is important. The more you work the paint into the fabric the less likely it is to crack and peel off.

This was a great way to personalize a shirt. It would make a fun kids craft day project. I hope my efforts have inspired you to give this a try. I can see myself doing this again in the future. If you've enjoyed this post please feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

A layout for myself!

Well I was surfing my bookmarks today and came across my page on Paper Craft Planet. I had joined a group over there in the summer where Jen Tapler puts out a sketch to motivate you every Sunday. It's called Scrappy Sunday, check it out. I was so inspired by this layout:



I right away created this page:

Totally thrilled. I got to use my "Tuckered out" mouse. He's a paper piecing from Precious Piecings. I also tried out SCAL (Sure Cuts Alot) for the title. It has the most awesome shadow feature. You have your word all set, go over to features and click the feature you'd like to use. Your options are shadow, blackout or shadow blackout. So cool. It does it automatically. No fussing around with trying to match them up yourself. I chose a CK font called Jolly Elf. Now if my Design Studio did this I'd never look at another program again. Can you imagine Shadow and blackout features for every shape and letter, no matter how you weld them.

Here's one more look at my little mouse:

Tomorrow is the beginning of our December Crop over at Scrap Sister Studios. Can't wait I'm actually going to be able to participate on and off all weekend. I should have some really good posts coming up. So stay tuned. If your bored come check us out.

BRRRRR....

When it's cold outside you get to warm up with this fun snowman layout. More paper piecing patterns from My Scrap Chick. I'm totally in love with them. They cut like a charm and go together easey peasey. I did minimal inking on this layout. A bit abnormal for me but they just didn't need it. I did ink the bird house and the snow on top the title.

Here's a closer look at my snowman. The left one has a bit of snow on his hat and arms. If you didn't want to cut the white pieces out you could easily use Flower Soft and it would look really good too.

I spent a few minutes arranging the pattern pieces on my cutting mat, I ended up with 3 pages to cut. The first one had the trees, the other 2 had the snowman and birdhouse parts. I figured if I got everything out of 3 cuts I was doing pretty good. Again so glad I invested in the SCAL program.

I have about 10 other snowman patterns to play with so be on the look out for a few more. Remember also Friday is Feaky at The Scrapbook Zone. Come visit me I work 10-6.

Paper piecing fun!

As you've seen I'm into playing with some wonderful paper piecing patterns lately. My favorite place to browse at the moment is called My Scrap Chick. At this time she has a wonderful sale going on. Head on over and take a look. When you spend $25 or more your entire order is 50% off. Now you have some choices as to what you want to do with these patterns. If you own a Cricut and SCAL (Sure Cuts A Lot) you can import the SVG file and cut away. If you don't they also come as a PDF pattern and you can hand cut the images. They come in a couple other formats as well in case you have a Shillouette or a Pazzles cutter. I'm hoping later tonight to come back and post some more pictures of what I've been creating. But we all know how that goes so it could take me longer.

Thanks for checking in today. Go be crafty!

EDITED: OK it's a small miracle but I'm adding a picture of today's paper piecing. The entire layout isn't done just yet but it's too cute not to share at least part of it.



I hope you enjoy it and that it inspires you in some way. I enjoy comments so if you like it, leave a bit of bloggy love to let me know.

Christmas packaging idea.

I thought this would be fun. We've used ice cream container to make fabric baskets so why not cover it with paper, make it pretty and use it for a Christmas gift. I got out the Winter Woodland cartridge and cut 3 snowflakes in 3 sizes. I then sprayed them with Smooch glimmer spray and pop dotted them for height. Love this bow. I put a little Stickles on the ends and a bit of Bling for the center. The container is covered with a piece of Christmas paper attached with Super Tape. The container is waxed so regular adhesive will not hold it in place. I cut the top circle out of the remaining paper and attached it with Super Tape too.


For the sentiment I welded the font on Winter Woodland together along with it's shadow. The top is cut out of glitter paper, when cutting glitter paper you need to multi-cut twice. Otherwise you'll become very angry and waste expensive glitter paper. Trust me on this one.

This was fun and easy. Clean the container when it's empty and let it dry over night. I recommend you don't let the water sit in the container, it will ruin it. Have fun and enjoy your Edy's ice cream.

Mini Art

This is my favorite home decor project to date. They are mini canvases. They measure 5x5 and cost $1. Yes you heard me $1. They can be found in the kids crafting section at Mike's. The possibilities are endless. I plan on connecting these three with red ribbon and hanging them by my front door. I also plan on making a few single ones to give away as gifts. All the images and words can be found on the Cricut Winter Woodland cartridge.

This first one "Season's Greetings" was embellished with "Stickles" and a few elements are pop dotted for depth.

The second one "Peace" is embellished with Smooch and the sleigh body is pop dotted along with the title.

The third one "Frosty Kisses" is embellished with Flower Soft - Polar white. I pop dotted the title pieces before I applied the Flower Soft.

Have fun with these. I found them just 10 days ago on the Cricut message board and I can't get enough of them. They were part of the Scrapbook Zone's Winter Woodland Cricut class.

It's beginning to feel a lot like...

the Holidays. We even have snow in our forecast this week. Yeah! Not! So I'm taking advantage of my good cheer and I did my Christmas ATC's. Well half of them anyway. So this is what I started with:

And after I used my Copic markers we came to this:

And finally the finished product. A little Basic Gray paper for the background, a simple title, some inking along the edges and a piece of ribbon....waa la. A Christmas ATC fit for a king.

Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow with another tidbit of creativity.

Nighty Night

Today's installment of Paper Piecing fun comes courtesy of "My Scrap Chick". She is having a really nice sale right now. Spend $25 and get 50% off your entire order. Way too good a deal for me to pass up. I picked up a couple bigger kits and these little cuties.

They went together very quickly. I'm going to make them into a page titled "Nighty Night" and give it to my Niece and Nephew who have a brand new baby boy.

The little sleeping owl is adorable. I pop dotted the heads on all of them and the Mom & Dad's hands. They still need a bit of chalking for some extra detail but other wise they look finished to me.

This set was designed with SCAL2 in mind and the pieces could be ungrouped. This made it way easier to space the paper on the mat, I could move the individual items wherever I wanted and then cut.

Well worth a try. Once you get the hang of piecing it gets faster. Wait till you see what's in store for tomorrow. A little Thanksgiving fun. I've already started it.

Well Hello there!

Yes I know I've been a negligent blogger lately but I was busy. Tonight's post is short but sweet cause I left my power cord at the store. When my battery dies I'm out of luck. I wanted to share my latest fun: SCAL. Better know as Sure Cuts Alot. Works with your Cricut and will cut any True Type font and SVG files. LOVE it!!

So I purchased a couple paper piecing patterns form a website called Precious Piecings. Lisa the owner is wonderfully talented. These are the first couple of items I made.



This little guy is all tuckered out! And he is as cute as can be. I added some Polar White Flower Soft to his hat as an embellishment, couldn't be more pleased. Can't wait to create a layout using him.

The trees are just whimsical enough to be beyond cute. More Flower Soft as the snow on the tree branches. You will be seeing more of these.

My goal this week is to post something new every day. So lets see how well I do. Thanks for stopping by. When I get my power cord tomorrow I'll be back in business.

A New HOME full of old friends.

Many of you know I hang on a message board called All Moments Remembered. Well as of last night the message board has turned off the lights and locked the doors. We've packed up all our belongings and moved to a new home. We are now Scrap Sisters Studio.

So I'd like to extend an invitation too all of you to join us. Knock on the door and register, once you get approved stop by and join in on the chatting. We have wonderful tutorials, a whole recipe book just waiting to be tried and the friendliest group of Sister's you'd ever want to meet. We chat about life, scrapping and what ever else we can think of. We have been known to play some pretty whacked out Bingo games during our monthly cyber crops, so you might want to come check that out. Our November crop is scheduled for Nov 13th -15th. We offer up lots of challenges and page ideas. It's a great way to crop without leaving your house. Moving can be a scary thing but this one has been smooth as butta.

Please stop in and visit. You won't find a friendlier group of scrapbookers any where on the web.
You can find us here: Scrap Sisters Studio.

CHIRP CHIRP

I made the Cricut Chirp! I was a highlighted thread this week.I'm so excited, it was for the layout below....DANGER! One of my all time favorite Cricut used layouts. I hope you get the Chirp if not go sign up at Cricut.com.

Danger

Just another day of playing with my Design Studio program and my Cricut. I like to design entire layouts with my DS program and then leave it for Katie and Sue at The Scrapbook Zone to see what they come up with. I'm not usually disappointed. So last Friday I took this sketch in with me.

Showed it to Kelly, our owner, and she jumped right in. She grabbed some awesome 2 sided by Reminisce paper titled"Stare Down". We used the multi colored side for our giant scalloped oval and then used the backside for our title. We knew the Mansion and tree would be black, so I started cutting those and she went in search of cardstock to use. Great choices! I was busy cutting away and when I turned around she was off Smooching the Mansion and tree. What a marvelous effect. This whole layout was about the details. Lots of inking and Smooching and pen work make this layout a "frightful" master piece.

I liked it so much I recreated it at home for my own use. Mines a little different, a little less bling but I like it all the same. Now when Halloween gets here I'm all set. I can just print my pictures that night and I'm done.

Here's a few more close up shots of my favorite page elements:




I hope you've been inspired to create a little Halloween Danger of your own. Go Scrap!

I've been given a blog award!

My friend Patti has tagged me for an Honest Scrap award. She's so nice. Thanks Patti. You can find Patti's blog at Scrapping is my Passion.

Here is how it works....

*Say thank you and give a link to the presenter of the award

*Share “10 Honest Things” about myself

*Present the award to 9 other bloggers whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design or to those who have encouraged me

*Be sure to tell the 9 bloggers chosen that you are giving them the Honest Scrap award and provide the guidelines for them.

So here goes with 10 honest things.
1. I LOVE my Cricut. The more I play the more I learn and want to play more.

2.I'm addicted to 2 messageboards: All Moments Remembered and Cricut.

3. I have major with drawls when I can't get on the internet at least once during the day.

4. I try to avoid housework at all costs. Any excuse to put it off. Now when my Mom comes to visit, there's a cleaning frenzy to be found right here in Garden City, Michigan.But that's a different issue all together.

5. I love my Husband, son and adopted daughter to distraction. I'd do anything and go any where they needed me to be.

6. I'm hooked on the SciFi channel. Ghost Hunters so totally rocks.

7. I have issues going to sleep almost every night. It's not uncommon for me to still be wide awake at 2 am. So sad, many nights I wish I could just lay down and go to sleep like my husband, out in less then 2 minutes.

8. I LOVE hockey. From Pee Wee's, which my son plays, to Juniors, I work for a B level team, and finally the RED WINGS!

9. I'm a closet procrastinator. Shhh don't tell anyone. I work best with a deadline and make it short. That way I just have to get it done.

10. I LOVE Blurfing (blog surfing)! I have a whole list and I cruise them every day, joyfully!

So here are my favorites, go check them out:

Denise Paper Pastime
Diane Capadia Designs
Debbie Unexpected Destination
Ingunn Feasts on Scraps
Scrappy Girl Four Seasons Farm
Kristin Everyday Creativeness
Stacey A Focus in the Wild (no scrappin, but wonderful photography)
Melanie Courtney Lane Designs
Heather Pine is Here

I've Been Gone ...... Cricuting again!

Ha ha ha. I can't seem to get enough. I've been creating for the store again. This months "Explore the Bug Zone" projects so rock. This post will be picture heavy. So beware. This is an over view shot of some of our projects, as displayed in The Scrapbook Zone.





This next series of pictures is the banner Kelly made for class. It says Spooky on one side and Thanks on the other. She used the new Basic Gray lines.












There's more! Come back tomorrow and I'll post a couple more shots of things we've been creating. Gotta love your Bug!