Crystal Palace Shaker Layout

As I was working on this next layout  I found the Mickey confetti I had saved from our table at the Crystal Palace and wanted to incorporate it into the layout. After all, I thought why should shakers be just for cards??

The details:

The paper I used was from K and Company, and I used Storybook for the title and cut with the coordinating plain papers from the same stack as the print. The title was cut in green and shadowed with blue but I just was not happy with how plain they looked - and then it hit me! The "Crystal Palace" needed crystals! And since it had been so long since I used my I-rock I apparently forgot what a huge PITA it is, I busted it out. Eleven hours later (not really but it felt like it) I was done adding the bling and (since I am a glutton for punishment) I added it to all the photo mats too.

Here you can see the bling in the photo mat corners and in the pic you can see the confetti I used for the shaker part of my layout.

To create the shaker element I used the same welding technique I used in this post. It is basically a frame made using some rectangles from George and the silhouette cut of the Mickey shape  from Mickey Font welded together. I used a blank frame behind it so you could see the background paper. The plastic is recycled from a package of plastic easter eggs.

I used a double layer of foam tape to give it more dimension than my shaker post-it holders, and you can see from this picture how it is popped up.

So even though adding the bling was more time than I liked to spend on one project I was super pleased with the way this came out and I was able to incorporate our souvenir confetti right into the layout. I guess sometimes the extra effort (and swearing) is worth it!

TheBugBytes!

I am over the moon to announce that Pam aka TheBugBytes actually asked me to design for her blog! Isn't that just insane? Maybe okie smacked her a little too hard one day and she didn't know what she was doing....so until she comes to her senses I am going to run with it!

Today is my first day at TheBugBytes and I have posted this layout that I designed for baby's first haircut!

I hope you will stop by and check out the details! I am also sharing the gypsy file for anyone who wants to email me.

Princess Party Week Begins!!

Well in case you couldn't tell from the blog name, birthday parties are one of my favorite things to do! And I have finally gotten together all the pics from my daughter's last party, so that I can share them with you. I initially tried to put everything into one blog post, but when it began to resemble an epic I decided to break it up a little bit, so I hope you can join me for Princess Week here on my blog!

This year's theme was Princess Tiana, she has been talking about it since the Princess and the Frog came out, so I have had a while to plan and scout out my options. Unfortunately, Provo-Craft has not yet come out with a new Princess cartridge (SIGH), so  we had to be a little creative. They do however have a frog prince on Once Upon A Princess so that is where we started.

Starting with the invitations...

I had the bright idea to place the invitation on a lanyard, sort of like a backstage pass. I had planned on making the lanyards but then I remembered ebay!! I was able to get 24 of them (with the plastic sleeve) for less than a dollar a piece and, more importantly,  in Princess Tiana purple.

 

The crafty details:

Using the lanyards meant that the invites are actually rather small, I think they ended up being maybe 3 and 1/4 inches by 4 inches. The printed paper is from a DCWV Pocket Full of Posies stack and the stamp is a Studio G. I did not have enough of the printed paper to do all 16 invites in the same color so half were blue and half were green.

 

The frog prince is cut at 1.85 inches and as you can see from the close up I inked the top layers of every dang little frog which was a huge pain in the hiny!! But I have to admit, it really made a difference in how nice it looked. I used heat set gems on the crown, and the frog is pop-dotted on the front of the invite. The inside had a pic of Princess Tiana and all the important party details. Attendees were told "princess attire is suggested but not required".

Instead of putting them in envelopes, I made tags for them using the scalloped circle from Mini Monograms, the charm circle from George and Basic Shapes, and the font from Storybook. Welded together, they were about 3 inches high, and I attached them with a brad.

How did I get the names on? At the time I used a gel pen with a rubber grip, but this would be another spot where Cri-Kuts would come in handy. In my gypsy file, the first layer of the design held the names sized to fit within the tag, while the second layer was the tag shape. Using the pen, I drew the names on the paper first, and returned to the design without unloading the mat. Then I selected the second layer, switched out the pen for the blade housing, changed the pressure, and cut the tags out with the blade. The last step was to color them all in with a marker. I liked it better than trying to roll up the lanyard to fit in an envelope.

These invites were daughter-approved and they were a HUGE hit with the girls. I heard about them constantly from parents the weeks in between the invite and the party. The best part - some of them even wore them to the party so I know they weren't thrown out!

Stay tuned tomorrow for any princess's best friend - accessories!

Thank You (also known as a deviation from the plan)

So I sat down tonight to get a design worked out for thank you cards for the princess party extravaganza (future post alert) and I was thinking about markers today. Why? Because Enfys is having this terrific giveaway on her blog Going Buggy - a full set of Promarkers, which are high quality alcohol basedmarkers. Make sure you head on over there and enter; she also has great videos and tips.

With that out of the way, I was also thinking about Okie, since it was her blog that led me to Enfys, and how she makes me buy stuff I don't know I want until I read her blog (really... she makes me), and how she recently convinced me to buy the Cri-kuts gel pen and holder. Now, I am (or maybe was is a better choice of words) a Cricut marker girl. I love using those markers (again - future post alert) and when I wanted a thinner line? I did it the cheap way, also known as puttting a rubber grip on a  Hannah Montana mini gel pen taken from my daughter when she wasn't looking. BUT I just may be a Cri-kuts convert because I love, love, love the ease and convenience of using the Cri-kuts. I guess Okie does know what she is talking about (just don't tell her I said that).

Now before you think I just like to talk about other people's work, I promise I did actually make cards.
I bought the value pack of 25 cards at ACMoore when they were on sale, and I was really disappointed with the quality of the paper, however with some extra layers I am happy with the way they turned out.

Because the paper is so thin, I did add an extra layer of cardstock to the inside of the card.

The crafty details:

These cards are 4 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches and the mats are 4 by 5 inches.

I used my Gypsy and created the a file with two layers. On the top layer was my "thank you" which is cut at 1.20 inches (Real Dial Size) from Wild Card. On the second layer was this shadow cut from Storybook, cut at 2.60 inches.

I put the Cri-kuts holder and pen in the machine and adjusted the pressure to medium. Then I loaded the mat, pressed cut, and "cut" the phrase with the marker. When it was done I selected Return to Design (don't unload the mat!!), and replaced the marker holder with the blade housing. I re-adjusted the pressure to a higher setting, and selected the next layer with the shape cut on it. Then I pressed cut again, and it cut out the design around my drawn phrase.

Then I used a Martha Stewart gel pen to color in the phrase, and added some white chalk to the edges of the cut to soften the pink a little bit. I used my ribbon stash and put a piece across the center, and then placed the whole cut on top. Incidentally, I used my Xyron to adhere both the ribbon and the cut. It is an absolute must for ribbon!! (but I will try not to wax poetic about the Xyron right now - that's a whole other post)

I have to say I liked the design of this card so much - I made three more!! As an added bonus, all of the cardstock was from my scrap drawers.I just have to figure out if I am going to be able to part with these cards (maybe I will just thank myself).

 The other cards:

Thanks for looking! Now if anyone wants to come over and make those princess thank you cards for me - I'll be waiting!