I'm BACK!

Wow, really?  I have a blog?  I think I forgot about that.  After taking a year off from posting and paper crafting I have decided it's time to get back at it.  Thank you to those of you who have checked up on me and for those of you who are still out there following me.  I have a few projects to show off so I will be scheduling some posts over the next couple of days and by then I hope to have more new things to show you too.  I am very excited to rejoin you all.

Teacher Gifts

It's the end of the year and time to start thinking of ways to thank those who have taken care of our kids over the past 9 months and helped them to learn and grow.  My girls took lavender plants to their teachers for Teacher's Appreciation Day.

This was a good way to use up some scraps of material I had sitting around.  It was fast and easy to wrap the material around the plant base and then just do a little stitch with some bakers twine from The Twinery, and tied it off.  It dressed up the plastic pots and then I used the mini clothes pins to attach the cards.

Inside the cards I wrote:

Thank You for Planting the seeds of knowledge,

Cultivating my love of learning

And helping me to Grow and Blossom this year.

It was a quick and easy project which was good since this year I had 9 teachers between the 3 kids.

Supplies:
Bakers Twine from The Twinery
Memento Ink
Copic Markers
Herbal Expressions stamp set from Stampin' Up!
Card Stock
Scrap Material

Method Monday - Clear Acetate Ornament

 

Materials:

Clear Glass Ornament
Printable Transparency Film (be sure to get type appropriate for your printer)
Markers (No water based markers, you need Sharpies, Copics, Vis-à-vis or other permanent markers)
Buffalo Snow
Ribbon
Glitter
Clear Glue
Round Die
Scissors

The process of making a clear ornament is much easier than you think.

*Print your image. You need to be sure that the transparency film you have is appropriate for your printer. I got an all purpose type which is 2 sided, a rough side and a smoother side. InkJet printers will need the rough side for the ink to stick while copiers and laser printers use toner which will print on the smoother side.

* Color your image on the BACK SIDE of the acetate. This will help keep the printer ink from smearing and also give more of a stained glass effect. Copics will work, but remember to use the darker colors in the spectrum, you are on a clear surface and not white so you need to go 2 shades darker than normal.

* Cut image using a circle die, but be sure to leave a little bit of tab sticking out the top. You can do this by cutting slits up to the area where the die will cut. Make sure your image and die are smaller than the size of your ornament. **Tip—I used scratch paper to make a sandwich between the die cut plates and the acetate to protect the image from scratches.

 

*Remove top from ornament and add Buffalo Snow

  *Carefully roll up the acetate and feed into the opening of the ornament. I used the circle cut from my scratch paper to protect the image as it is sliding into the ornament. The tab you left at the top will help make sure your image stays straight in the ornament. The acetate will unroll itself once inside. Use tweezers to pull the scratch paper out.

*Replace top of ornament.

*Decorate ornament with clear glue and glitter.

*Add decorative bow with ribbon

Hang in There – New Release from ISS

Hey all!  It’s Release Week at InStyle Stamps Blog and today I am showing off a project I made using Hang in There.  This digital image will be available in the InStyle Stamps Store TOMORROW!  Woohoo! 

I made this name frame for one of my twins  to go over her bed.  The old name plaque I had for them was Noah’s Ark and they are “Big Girls” now, 4 years old, so it is time for something new.  Reganne is all about Pink and Polka Dot’s and her favorite animal is a monkey.  I have had to hide this from her for now, until I can get one finished for her sister, but that one will have Ellie the Elephant on it and more purple.  I am thrilled with the way this came out.  The spacing between the a and the n was perfect for the little vine to span.

Be sure to join us tomorrow night at Paper Craft Planet for our Release Party. 

Friday Fun Challenge #46

This week Sara challenged us to make something wearable or usable. I had a jewelry kit in my cabinet i was all set to use, but it didn't leave much room to actually stamp something. So I went to plan B domino magnets.




I have had these dominoes for a while now and decided to crack open the seal on the box. This was really a fast project. I pulled out my Copics and my Airbrush and layered on some color onto the dominoes. I then pulled out my black StazOn pad and went to stamp the image from Pocket Silhouettes and oops. I'm not sure if it was because my ink pad wasn't very juicy or if it was because I know Copics and StazOn don't play nice, but instead of laying down color, only a little black stayed down and a few layers of the Copic ink were pulled off. I actually kind of like the effect, but it needed more. So I used my Brilliance Coffee Bean pad and stamped again and then heat set it. Nope, still needed more. I then used my White Brilliance pad to stamp the final image. I think over all there is a lot of depth to the color and images because of the layers I applied. Finally, I grabbed my red sticky tape and was happy to see that it was the perfect width to go around the tile. I had some gold leaf flakes sitting around and applied that to the tape. It gave the tiles a wonderful finishing touch.

I was going to add a pin backing to these, but can find them right now, so I added magnets instead.


Details

Stamps: Pocket Silhouettes
Paper: NONE
Ink: Copic Markers, Black StazOn, Brilliance Coffee Bean, Brilliance White
Accessories: Red line tape, Gold Leaf, Magnet, Hot Glue

Don't forget to use keyword FFC46 if uploading to a gallery and please link back here. Check out the other Friday Fun Girls' creations. Kim is sitting this one out, but you can still leave her a little love.

Wall Hangers

I invited a few friends to join me for the SBS so I wanted to make them something special for making the drive and taking the time to spend the day with Peanut and I (yes, I had the baby with me.) I saw a few of these in the gallery and thought it was an awesome idea and I happened to have all the supplies on hand.



I started with 4" chipboard coasters (I have nearly as many coasters on hand as I do paper cliips) and cut some dsp in 4" squares. I grabbed my 5" Xyron only to discover that 2 little monkeys must have gotten to it up on my counter top and pulled out the entire roll of the cellophane top layer. *Sigh* Fortunately, I was able to discover that I could still use the adhesive roll if I laid it flat and then stuck the coasters to the adhesive and pulled it back off the adhesive came off the waxy layer and made my whole coaster sticky. I was able to easily stick my 4" squares of Bella Rose dsp directly to the coaster, and they WILL not be coming off any time soon. I then trimmed 1/16" off all four sides of the coaster to square off the rounded coaster corners. I cut coordinating card stock into 3-1/4" squares and used my punches to create interesting shapes. I folded the ribbons in half and created the hanging loops. I adhered the ribbon to the back of the coasters using hot glue. Then, I embellished the panels. These wall hangers can be a cute way to display photos or your favorite stamped images.

Details:

Stamps: None
Paper: Bella Rose dsp, Pink Pirouette, Red Riding Hood, Kiwi Kiss
Accessories: Ribbon, Large Brad, Silk Flowers, Buttons, Corner Rounder Punch, 4" Chipboard Coasters, scallop punch

SBS Frames

Part of the fun of the Shoebox Swap was making an altered item for a door prize. I bought a few white frames the last time I was at Ikea and thought we would use them in the girls bedroom, and I got a few extras to put in that bottomless project drawer. Well, none of them are in the girls room yet, but I was inspired enough to cover them with Bella Rose dsp and use the coordinating card stock to create a mat. I think they came out very cute. I found the little silk sticky flowers in the bridal section of JoAnns and I think it accents the soft Pink Pirouette roses nicely.



Details:

Stamps: NONE
Paper: Bella Rose dsp, Pink Pirouette cs, Kiwi Kiss cs, Whisper White cs
Accessories: White silk stick on flowers

I also included a bottle of assorted white Prima flowers, but decided I needed to dress those up a little too, so I packaged them in this little popcorn box I cut using my Tags Bags Boxes and More cartridge for my Cricut Expressions. Sorry, i don't remember the name of this dsp, it was some really old Stampin' Up! paper I had in my collection.