You float my boat: An Altered Project

Good afternoon!  I have a different type of project to share with you today.  If you visit my blog often, you know that I typically default to making scrapbook pages and/or cards - they are my favorite!  But occasionally, the creative mood pulls me in a different direction.  

 

I've been eyeing all of the different type of message/memo boards that have been popping up in home décor.  I love that many of the ones I've seen allow for the pictures and other elements to be switched out, if desired.  A simple clip or clothespin is often all that's used to attach these items to the frame.  Yesterday, I shared my own mini version of one of these memo boards on the Love My Tapes blog.

 

Supplies used: Love My Tapes - red/white stripe washi, light blue star print fabric tape; DCWV - patterned paper; Lawn Fawn - image stamps and sentiment; May Arts - rope-like twine; American Crafts - twine and glittered clothespin; Stampin Up - ink; Other: IKEA frame, Veteran Typewriter font, machine stitching, hot glue.

I used a cheap white IKEA picture frame as the base of my memo board. Once the frames surface was decorated (with washi tape and 'rope-like' twine), I attached my chosen clothespin with a bit of hot glue to the right side of the frame.  The photo booth strip and banner style tags are simply clipped in place and can easily be removed and/or replaced, if I so choose.

Since the photo booth strip was long and narrow, I had extra room for embellishment along the left side of the frame.  I created a sweet little sewn pennant banner to fill in that space, and adorned it with more adorable Lawn Fawn stamped images.

 

This turned out to be a quick and fun project that I'm anxious to display in my home.  I can see myself making many more of these memo frames and switching out the theme, products and color to make each one entirely different from the next.  It could be a pretty fun gift idea, as well!

 

Watercolors and Washi

Happy Saturday morning!  If your weather has been anything like mine here in the Midwest (cold, snow and more cold!) you are in need of some warm and happy inspiration, like me!  I've got just the solution for you and it involves watercolors and washi tape!  Are you intrigued?  If so, scroll on for a look at a duo of cards I put together for Love My Tapes...



Supplies used: Bazzill Cardstock; Love My Tapes washi tape, lace tape; American Crafts twine; Pink Paislee stamps; Hero Arts ink and embossing powder; Stampin' Up ink; Doodlebug enamel dots; Other: machine stitching, embossing folder and foam adhesive. 

Now I didn't set out to combine washi and watercolors, originally.  Although, it ended up being quite a happy match, don't you think?!  You can read more about the evolution my design process took for these cards on the Love My Tapes blog.  I hope you'll stop by and say HI!

Washi polka dots and another shaker card

Hello!  I'm just popping in for a minute to direct you to a little tutorial I have up on the Love My Tapes blog today.  I've made this fun birthday card featuring a shaker element and washi polka dots...




Supplies used: Love My Tapes - washi tapes and adhesive, Bazzill - cardstock, Me & My Big Ideas - clear sentiment stickers; We R Memory Keepers - circle dies; Other: silver seed beads, sequins, foam tape.

I hope you'll stop on over and give it a peek, and even better - give this technique a try for yourself!  If you do, be sure to check out and enter the giveaway they've got going on over there!

Quick and pretty holiday gift bags

Hello!  Good Monday morning! I'm popping in real quick to share some quick and pretty holiday gift packaging that I whipped up for the LMT blog.  With only ten days remaining until Christmas, I'm sure we're all in need of some simple gift wrap ideas, am I right?! 




Supplies used: Die Cuts with a View Candy Cane Lane Stack; Love My Tapes black glitter paper and red & white striped washi tape; American Crafts red twine; Jenni Bowlin red adhesive pearls; Michaels glittery red ribbon.

A kraft colored bag or container is always a good starting point, for a project like this.  Using a neutral base, allows you to work in just about any color palette you might have on hand.  I purchased my kraft gift bags at my local dollar store - 4 for $1.00! 

 

For the two bags I'm showcasing today, I used the Candy Cane lane stack from Die Cuts with a View.  It features a bold combination of red, black and white alongside some graphic yet elegant images.

 

 

Both bags have a wide glitter banner, cut from the Love My Tapes adhesive glitter sheets, as a backdrop.  The banner is not only pretty, but creates a nice focal point for the greeting tag.

The tags were cut from the Candy Cane Lane papers and simply embellished with a strip or two of washi tape and some pretty adhesive pearls.  The back of the tags are blank to write my 'to and from' message, and  are finished off with a tie of sparkly ribbon and some matching twine.

 

 

The best part about this project is that, once my supplies were gathered, I put together these two bags (present inside and tags addressed) in under ten minutes!

 

I hope this gives you some hints for completing your holiday wrapping!  Thanks for stopping by!

 

Glittery Countdown to Christmas

Hello!  Are you in the midst of the holiday hustle and bustle?  It seems like the days speed up exponentially once the month of December is upon us.  I have lots of crafting and making I'd still like to do for the holidays, so I'm hoping I can squeeze a few more projects in before December 25th!  If that's going to happen, I'm going to have to make said projects both quick and easy.  But that doesn't mean they have to be short on style or cuteness!

Here is a project I shared on the Love My Tapes blog on Friday that fits the bill:

Pop on over there to see how I quickly and beautifully dressed up our Christmas book advent countdown this year!

Catching up with Love My Tapes

Happy Sunday friends!  I hope you all enjoyed a nice weekend, and for my American friends, I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with family, good food and abundant blessings.

I wanted to pop on real quick tonight to share a couple of projects I had up on the Love My Tapes blog recently.  The first one is a page to match the season.  While these pictures are technically from last winter, the recent snow we've had and my stack of cozy, swater-like fabric tapes had me itching to scrap this memory!




Supplies used: American Crafts - patterned paper, cardstock, heart punch; Jillibean Soup - background patterned paper, Love diecut word; EK Success - Martha Stewart snowflake punch; Doodlebug Design - sequins; Love My Tapes - blue fabric tape; Other - machine stitching, Veteran Typewriter computer font; Silhouette portrait.

Here's a closer look at the blue fabric tape.  It does a great job of drawing your eye to the title and framing it out on both ends.  The texture and pattern remind me of a warm, cozy sweater so that also made it a perfect match for this page!

To get more details on this page, hop on over to the this post on the LMT blog.

My next project was created with my Thanksgiving hostess in mind, but really you could send a card like this anytime of the year!  Switch up the colors and icon and it could work for just about any season.  Here's a look...



Supplies used: LMT- ivory lace tape; Bazzill - cardstock; Stampin Up - embossing folder; Doodlebug Designs - sequins; Hero Arts - ink, leaf stamp; Jillibean Soup - stamped sentiment; American Crafts - twine; Other: foam adhesive.

This particular project features LMT's pretty lace tape.  For more info and a closer look, check out this post on the LMT blog.

That's it for today!  Join me back here tomorrow and I have two cute pages to share.  See you then!

Two Page Tuesday #3

Hi readers!  Welcome to another installment of Two-page Tuesday.  I'm calling this one version 3.0. 

I just spent the weekend with some of my favorite girlfriends - chatting, eating, laughing and scrapping!  While I wasn't nearly as productive as I've been in year's past, I still have a small pile of pages that I'm excited to share here on the blog in the coming weeks.

This is the first of those pages.  I bought that darling black and white Doodlebug graduation paper because I knew it would be just perfect for documenting my youngest son's preschool commencement.



Supplies used: Doodlebug patterned paper and sequins; Bazzill Cardstock - navy, We R Memory Keepers cardstock - gray; Jillibean Soup polaroid placemat; Love My Tapes black glitter adhesive sheet and black & white polka dot washi tape; Echo Park star die; Simple Stories label sticker; Memories black ink; Other: Silhouette, foam adhesive, computer journaling.

I had seven pictures to include on this two page spread.  In order to fit them all in and still have room for lots of other fun details and important info, I sized the pictures down considerably.  Using Picasa (which you can download for free right here), I put 2 pictures on each 4x6 canvas resulting in a series of 2x3 photos.  With the pictures scaled down, they fit just perfectly within the margins of the Jillibean Soup polaroid placemat paper.

Many of the placemats include cute words and icons that are already diecut into the page.  I simply backed each of those spaces with a coordinating grey cardstock to make them fit in with the rest of the design.

I also reached into my Love My Tapes stash for this page.  In fact, you can view this page on the Love my Tapes blog today. 

I used the black and white mini polka dot tape to give the illusion that several of the polaroids were taped to the page.  I also used LMT's 12x12 glitter adhesive-back sheets to cut a series of diecut stars to accent my page.

Sprinkling the stars by my title and even carrying them to the left page, creates a nice 'frame' on both ends of the layout.  It also draws the readers eye fully across the two pages.

 

Putting together a two page layout doesn't have to be difficult.  Here I've lined everything up very formally and linear.  The addition of cute details, diecut stars, sequins and even a bold title spices up the page and makes it interesting.

 

Thanks for visiting today! 

Spooky cute neighbor treats

As promised, I'm back today to share with you a recent project I had up on the Love My Tapes blog.

It's no secret that I love to bake (almost as much as I love to papercraft!).  But if I kept and consumed all of the yummy treats I whip up, I most certainly would not be able to fit in the clothes in my closet - ha!  So, to share the wealth with my friends and neighbors, and spare my waistline - I love to package up these treats to gift to some of my favorite people.

The cooler temperatures have had me in the mood for pumpkin EVERYTHING.  As of today, I've officially baked six loaves of pumpkin bread.  I found these sweet kraft and orange polka dot boxes at Hobby Lobby, to put all that yummy bread in. They were rather plain on their own, but a bit of washi tape, glitter paper, and a festive sticker or two made for quite a spooky yet sweet presentation.



Supplies used: Hobby Lobby - kraft boxes; We R Memory Keepers - black cardstock; Love My Tapes - black polka dot washi tape, triangle washi tape, self adhesive black glitter paper; Recollections - 3D stickers; Stampin Up - sentiment stamp; Jillibean Soup - kraft tags; Memories - black ink.

 

I started by cutting a black cardstock band, approximately 2.5" wide, to fit around the width of each box.  The cardstock band is wrapped with a few layers of washi tape and self adhesive glitter paper.  In order to create a coordinating bow, I layed and trimmed out strips of washi tape, onto white cardstock.  Doing this, allowed me to treat the tape as ribbon, and construct a pretty layered and dimensional bow.  A simple tag adorned with a cute 3D sticker, stamped sentiment and another strip of the self adhesive glitter paper finishes off this sweet piece.

 

 

To coordinate with the ghost sticker on this next box, I went with a different washi tape.  I just received this tape in my latest LMT design team box and it is one of my very favorites - love the triangles!  And how cute is that Stampin' Up sentiment - "It's Halloween - enjoy every bite."?!!  It couldn't have been more perfect, huh?!

My ideas for pretty packaging don't stop there.  I featured a similar project on the LMT blog here.  These pillowboxes are perfect for a small little treat or even a gift card.  They can be decorated to suit the occasion and are quick and simple to put together.

I hope I've inspired you to pull out your papercrafting supplies the next time you are gifting some goodies - homemade or store-bought!  Thanks for joining me again today! 

Weekend inspiration

Happy Friday, friends!  Do you have any plans to sneak in some crafting this weekend?  It's definitely on my list of to-do's for the next several days - if I can eek out some time between soccer games, kids birthday parties and a date night with my hubby!

In the meantime, I wanted to pop in quickly to share a couple of projects I've had up over on the Love My Tapes blog.  As I mentioned in my last post, our household is fully immersed in the back to school routine, so I couldn't resist creating a few projects with that theme in mind. The first was a set of lunch box notes, with a simple washi tape background.



Supplies used: Studio G - kraft notecards; Love My Tapes - washi tape; Fiskars - star punch; Heidi Swapp - sentiment stamps; KI Memories - smiley stamp; Hero Arts - black ink; Other: scrap cardstock/paper

Click here for more details on this project and a closer look at each of these sweet mini notes!

Another project I shared, would be perfect for the new or even seasoned little readers in your house - washi adorned bookmarks.



Supplies used: Love My Tapes - washi tape; Stampin Up - bookworm stamp, punch; Studio G - cupcake stamp; American Crafts - cardstock, colored pencils; Hero Arts - black ink; Other - gamsol

You can click here for a closer look at these bookmarks and easy instructions to create your own!

And today on the LMT blog I'm sharing a recent scrapbook page, that wouldn't be complete without the added texture and dimension of some pretty lace tape borders.




Supplies used: American Crafts - patterned paper, diecuts, wood & epoxy embelishments; Jillibean Soup - kraft diecut title; Love My Tapes - lace tape; Stampin Up - scallop border punch; Other - machine stitching, crochet thread, circle punch

So, now that you've got a few ideas, I hope you'll make it a priority to get crafty this weekend.  If you do, I hope you'll come back and share with me what you've made. 

LMT layout: patterned paper covered washi

Happy Saturday!  Hope you're weekend is starting off better than mine!  We had a boatload of plans for the day, but it looks like the stomach bug had other ideas. 

Fortunately, I've yet to be hit (knock on wood!) so in the meantime, I'm going to hide in my craftroom and scrap!  But before I do that, just wanted to pop on here and share my latest project for Love My Tapes.



Supplies used: Patterned Paper - Bella Blvd, Jillibean Soup, Making Memories; Washi Tape - Love My Tapes; Title: Silhouette store download file; Embellishements - Studio Calico wood veneers; Other: machine stitching, Veteran Typewriter font.

Here's a closer look at some of the pretty patterns going on, between both the papers and washi tapes I've used.

 

For more details on this page including all of the different ways in which I've included tape, head on over to this post on the Love My Tapes blog.

 

Hope to be back to share more soon (and with better news next time, too!) ;)

 

Lots of washi

Happy Monday and Memorial Day to my US friends!  I'm spending most of the day enjoying my family but wanted to pop in quickly to share and link you up to a few recent projects that I've had featured on the Love My Tapes blog. 

First is a sweet little tin, that I altered, to hold the bows and barrettes I continue to gather for my little girl's hair.  This piece serves not only as functional organizational container, but also as a cute décor piece to add to her room.

 

For the full details and step by step tutorial to make your own, hop on over to this post on the Love My Tapes blog.

 

Next up is a pair of sweet and simple cards that would be just perfect to hand off on Father's Day, to all of the special Dads in your life. 

 

 

Who knew washi tape neck and bow ties could be so cute!  Again, hop on over to this post on the Love My Tapes blog for full directions and a step by step photo tutorial to create your own.

 

Thanks for joining me today!  See you real soon with lots more to share!

 

 

 

Guest Designer and some news!

Hello there, crafty friends!  So sorry for my unexplained absence!  While I didn't intend to take such a long blog break -- as usual life got in the way!  More specifically, I've been focusing a little more on ME! Try to get my health in check, make exercise a priority and fortunately, I've been having GREAT results!  Yay!  That downside to that is though, rather than heading to my scrapbook desk in the evenings, I've been heading to bed early to catch some extra zzzz's and keep myself from any late night snacking while I scrap - lol!  Hopefully now that I'm three months into these healthier routines, the bad habits are kicked and I'll be around sharing things with you all more often.

Even though I haven't been posting, I've still been busy crafting.  In fact, I have some especially fun things to share today, that I've been keeping under wraps.

First off, is a Guest Designer stint that I was fortunate to land with Jillibean Soup.  I was sent a generous supply of items from the Sightseeing Stew and Birthday Bisque collections. 

Today on the Jillibean blog, my projects featuring Jillibean's wonderful new travel line are being shared.  The first thing I was itching to create with this collection was a scrapbook page with pictures and memories from our Summer trip to Seattle.




Supplies used: Jillibean Soup - Patterned Paper: Sightseeing Stew/Bite Sized Bits, Tossed Tickets, Blanched Bags, Poached Photos; Soup Staples II/Gray Salt; Peapod Parts: Sightseeing Stew; Coordinating Label Stickers: Sightseeing Stew; Soup Labels: Sightseeing Stew; Wooden Nickels: Birthday; Other: American Crafts cardstock, Doodlebug sprinkles, foam adhesive, Veteran Typewriter font, machine stitching

One of my favorite pieces from the entire Sightseeing Stew line was the 'Tossed Tickets' patterned paper.  Upon first look, I knew I wanted to cut the paper up, punch holes in the tops and thread string through the 'tickets' to create a fun, textural cluster on my page.

These cute labels were cut from the Bite Sized Bits paper and were the perfect home for my journaling.

 

An additional piece from the Bite Sized Bits paper, allowed for an quick short-cut to my title, and was easily embellished with a cute airplane diecut and wooden nickel button.

I couldn't stop with just the scrapbook page, and went on to create too additional cards.  This first card uses one of the Jillibean placemats (kraft circles) to highlight a variety of the patterns from the collection.



Jillibean Soup supplies used: Patterned Paper: Sightseeing Stew/Bite Sized Bits, Pickled Planes, Blanched Bags, Tossed Tickets; Soup Staples II/Yellow Salt, Gray Salt; Placemats: Kraft Simple Circles; Mini Placemats: Smile; Peapod Parts: Sightseeing Stew; Coordinating Label Stickers: Sightseeing Stew; Wood Sprinkles: Love; Other: machine stitching, foam adhesive

As you may have noticied the Peapod Parts are some of my favorite Jillibean items.  I seem to sneak them in to most of my recent projects!  The sweet little globe from Sightseeing Stew inspired the whole concept for this miss you card.



Jillibean Soup supplies used: Patterned Paper: Sightseeing Stew/Bite Sized Bits, Tossed Tickets, Blanched Bags; Homemade 6 Bean Soup/Navy Bean; Peapod Parts: Sightseeing Stew; Coordinating Label Stickers: Sightseeing Stew; Wise Words: White Sentiments; Cool Beans: Christmas; Other: Studio Calico wood veneer stars, American Crafts twine

The remainder of my guest designer projects will be highlighted on the blog next week, so I hope you'll come back to see them the (there might just be a little giveaway to go along with the post - hint, hint!!!).  They are some of my new favorite creations!

Oh, and did I mention some news?!  If you've been here before, you may have noticed that I added a new badge to my blog along the right hand side.  I'm happy to share that I've been selected to join the designers over at the newly re-launched Love My Tapes.

I shared a peek on instagram, at the LMT products that I'll be working with and will be back soon to show you how I've been putting all of that pretty tape to good use!

Thanks for stopping by and sharing in my excitement!