The Elmo Phone: My Creative Scrapbook

Like many toddlers, my little one was obsessed with both Elmo and telephones. Put the two together and I had a very happy 2-year-old.

This is my little guy on his 2nd birthday making his first call on the Elmo telephone.  Apparently Elmo wanted to talk to my brother, Michael.  Isn't it funny how - no matter how old you are - if a kid hands you a telephone, you'll talk to Elmo?  Even if you're a marine. :)

I used the April kit at My Creative Scrapbook to make this layout. The kit featured Bo Bunny's Surprise collection and I immediately pulled out this fun ABC paper. I knew it would be perfect for a toddler page.

The kit includes lot of fun chipboard elements. Here, I embellished the chipboard pennants with stickers. A tag under the photo anchors the layout and provides a spot for the title.

I'm glad you stopped by!  We're off to the beach for a few days of R&R.  I'll be back with a new post next week. Have a great weekend.

Pirate Birthday Party: My Creative Scrapbook

When we went to the beach last year, we saw a pirate show at the Dollywood Theater.  Ever since, my little boy has been obsessed with all things pirate.  For his birthday this year, of course, we did a pirate theme.

I've been on the lookout for pirate icons in scrapbooking supplies and so far, I haven't found a collection that features them. Maybe there is still hope for a future Halloween line.  In the meantime, I decided to scrap my son's birthday party photos with the fun, happy Surprise! collection from Bo Bunny.  I was so excited to find this line featured in the new April kit from My Creative Scrapbook.

I used Jolly Roger cupcake toppers, which I got from Michael's. I did intend to make my own, but convinced myself that store-bought was perfectly fine for 4-year-olds. Hee! I saved one of the toppers and used it as an embellishment on my page. 

I hope you have a great week. Thanks so much for stopping by. 

Surprise!: Bo Bunny

It's reveal day at My Creative Scrapbook and I'm so happy to say that that April Creative Kit features the fun new Surprise! collection from Bo Bunny. 

The kit is themed for celebrations and arrived with perfect timing - just a few days before my son's fourth birthday. 

The first layout I made with the kit was with a photo of my son at preschool on the day he turned 4. The teacher made him a birthday crown and while Cory waited for the festivities to begin, I snapped this quick photo. 

This layout came together quickly. I used a pre-printed background. The banners, cake and "make a wish" are part of the paper.  I added a large photo mat and a few pennants on the upper left to balance the page. Easy peasy. 

This is a closeup of the pennants and the top of the photo mat: 

At the bottom of the page, I added the chipboard gift near the cake and tucked a hidden journaling spot under the photo with a ribbon pull tab. 

I'll be back next week with more projects from this kit. You can see the full reveal of all the kits here 
at My Creative Scrapbook.

April Kit Sneak Peeks: My Creative Scrapbook

Hello. Did you have a nice holiday weekend?  We had a lot of fun with family and friends and spent Easter Eve, as we always do, on my brother's farm. 

The night ends with a bonfire and roasted Peeps, the candy kind.  I don't care for Peeps out of the package, but when we roast Peeps, the sugar coating caramelizes and the marshmallow inside softens and they are delish!

It was nice to have a long weekend but here we are in April already. A new month means a new kit at My Creative Scrapbook. The April Creative Kit is a particularly fun and festive one.  The kits will be revealed on April 5, but here are a few sneak peeks.

 

I hope you have a great week. I'll be back on Friday with the full reveal. 

Cookie Cutter Ornaments: My Creative Scrapbook

I love homemade ornmaments on a tree.  Today, I have some easy ones to make using cookie cutters. 

I used metal painted cookie cutters from Wilton as my base but any type will work.

Start by tracing the cookie cutter on patterned paper. I used Bo Bunny's Mistletoe collection, which was included in the December kit at My Creative Scrapbook.

I dut out the shape then used a glue medium to attach it to the back of the ornament.  I'm partial to Claudine Hellmuth's multi-medium matte.

Decorate as desired. This cookie cutter was meant to be a candy cane, but I liked it better as a stocking.  Artistic license and all that!

Before you start decorating the cookie cutter, think about how you want to attach a hanger.  If you have a strong hole puncher like a Cropadile, you can punch a hole in the top, then thread in twine for a hanger.  Otherwise, you can just tie twine around the top of the ornament. Either way works well.

On this ornament, I punched a hole at both the top and bottom of the ornament and ran twine through both holes with a jingle bell anchoring the bottom. I used baker's twine from Trendy Twine.

On this ornament, I traced the house shape, then pop-dotted the windows and doors. It's important to add dimensional elements prior to putting the paper on the back of the cookie cutter. Once the paper is glued on, it is really tight to work inside the ornament.  

To finish this ornament, I added a roof line, chimney, scallop trim and a tree. Decorating both inside and outside the cookie cutter gives a nice dimension.

I hung these outside to show them in natural light.

And they look so pretty on the tree.

The design team at My Creative Scrapbook has tips and tutorials for the holidays every day this month on the MCS blog. Thanks for stopping by!

Handmade Holiday Packaging: Wine Bags & Tubes

I love all gifts (well, most gifts!) but I especially love a nice presentation.  A pretty package makes me smile before I even open the gift.  I confess that I don't always spend the time or the effort to doll up the packaging, but I always feel better about the gift-giving when I do. 

A gift of wine or a favorite spirit is always a popular gift. Personally, I like to give Amarula, a cream liqueur from South Africa. I discovered it while a Peace Corps volunteer and it is all kinds of yummy.

Today, I have two ways to package wine or spirits using bags or tubes.

To make the wine bag, I started with a pre-made burlap bag that I got on clearance at Michael's Craft Store and took out the side seams.  I used a small square punch to make 12 squares from patterned paper. I used Bo Bunny's Mistletoe collection, which was included in the December kit at My Creative Scrapbook.  Once I had my squares, I laid them in a pattern on the table to decide how I liked them. Then I stitched the squares onto the burlap bag and re-stitched the side seams.

To give the bag a little extra flair, I added some chipboard to the squares.

Then made a hanging tag and tied the bag with ribbon. 

To make the wine tube, I started with an Autumn cardboard tube from a craft store.  I knew it would be easy to recover with scrapbook paper as the decorative part (without the lid) measured exactly 12 inches tall and was 12 inches around.

To use the wine tube for the holidays, I wrapped a piece of Bo Bunny's Mistletoe paper around the tube using modge podge. I wrapped the lid with a coordinating paper.

Like the burlap bag, I added chipboard and ribbon to the tube to decorate it.

There you have it. Wine, only better!

Thanks for stopping by!

Altered Frame: My Creative Scrapbook

One of my favorite projects to make are altered photo frames. They are fun and easy to do.  I keep my eyes out for unusual shaped frames when I am out and about and pick them up on clearance or at thrift shops.  A little tip: the best frames have a thick photo mat. Just remove the photo mat and you have working room under the glass to use chipboard or pop dots.

This frame originally had a bamboo mat with openings for two square photos. It was on my bookshelf, actually, sporting two small black and white photos.  Perfect for repurposing!

To start, I traced the back of the picture frame on patterned paper.  I used Bo Bunny's Mistletoe line, which was part of the December kit at My Creative Scrapbook. Then I trimmed the paper and inserted it into the frame, gluing it down.

I put my photo on the right side of the frame, leaving the left side open for decoration. I tucked a journaling card under the photo. Then I added a couple of chipboard gifts on the left. They will fit here under the glass because they were the same thickness as the photo mat I discarded.

I put the Santa scene under the glass then started decorating the black frame. On the right, I added a reindeer. I used a glitter brad for a hanging tag and wrapped a bit of wired tinsel around his neck as a winter scarf.

On the left, I added a big Christmas tree, the word "believe" and some gifts. Under the tree, you can see the other gifts that are beneath the glass. Decorating both under and above the glass gives a nice dimension to the frame.

That's it. A quick project and a happy addition to my bookshelf.

Reveal Day: December Kits at My Creative Scrapbook

Yay!  It's the 5th of the month and reveal day for My Creative Scrapbook.  This month, I worked with the Creative Kit, which featured Bo Bunny's Mistletoe.  It's a bright and cheery line in classic Christmas colors. I loved this fun and happy collection. 

I made a mix of layouts and altered projects with this kit. Today, I am going to post the layouts and I'll post the altered projects with tutorials next week.  

First up is a visit to Santa. Or rather, waiting in line to see Santa.

On this layout, I made a big photo mat from the red dot paper to ground my page. I put a photo in the center and a large piece of chipboard on the left. On the right, I wanted to add my journaling, but the journaling card was too small in scale and made the layout unbalanced. 

To give the right side more visual weight, I made a pocket for the journaling card. Easy peasy. I cut a piece of patterned paper a bit bigger than the journaling card, backed the pocket with cardstock and stitched it together on three sides with red thread. 

My second layout documents our Christmas cookie tradition. Mom has been using this same recipe for Christmas cookies since the 1960s and it just doesn't feel like the holidays without these. They are a hands down favorite for the whole family.

Here's a closeup of the cute gingerbread people:

Here's is a photo of the MCS December Creative Kit.

The design team has done amazing work with the December kits, especially altered projects.  You can see all the projects in the design team gallery.  Some of the other kits this month featured Authentique, Teresa Collins, Kaisercraft and Fancy Pants Designs.  The team will have tutorials posted every day this month on the My Creative Scrapbook blog. Come have a peek!

Well, hello December!

December does this every year:  I blink and it’s here! 

December is ushering in lots of exciting things.  The new issue of PaperHaus magazine is out and it’s amazing.  I’m excited to be a contributor. You can see the new issue here.  The PaperHaus blog is giving away 12 great prizes, one prize a day for the first 12 days of December. Be sure to hop over there and leave a comment. Today’s prize is from Prima.

December 1 also marks the day for sneak peaks for the new kits at My Creative Scrapbook. Below is a sneak at one of my projects.  The full reveal is December 5 and the Design Team has outdone itself.  The holiday projects are amazing and we'll have tips and tutorials on the blog every day this month.

Last year, I decided to document my family’s holiday season with a December Daily.  It was the first time I undertook the project and I’ll be honest: I didn’t finish.  So this is the year!  The year to finish last year’s December Daily that is.

I did journal every day last year and I put a post it note in my December Daily of what we did. So even though I didn’t finish the album, I have a good record of what we did and for most days, I printed the photos, and slipped them in the page protectors too.  But since I didn’t have all my foundation pages premade, I found I just couldn’t keep up.

So, this year on my blog, I am going to post each day of my 2011 December Daily. Some days will be pages I’ve already done and some will be new pages that record last year’s activities.   When I get to December 25, I will have completed my 2011 December Daily. Yay!  That’s the plan anyway.

I started my December Daily with a photo from outside the house looking in.  I used an Ali Edwards template for 6x8 pages and followed her general design. Every day except Dec. 1 has a foundation page on the left and a journaling/photo page on the right. 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope your December is off to a great start!

Favorite Gift Under The Tree

In the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I often find that I don’t scrap Christmas until well after the fact. Does this happen to you? One of the things I meant to document last year, but didn’t, was my son’s favorite Christmas present. Like so many boys his age - and older - he has an obsession with cars. In fact, this may well be a stage that boys never outgrow.

Under the tree last year, every present was wrapped except one: the Little People racetrack. My toddler is an early riser and we wanted him to have something special to find while everyone else was still nestled in bed. I got up with him at 6 am to see what Santa had brought. Cory couldn’t have been more excited. Even later that morning, as he opened present after present, he kept going back to his cars and the racetrack. It was his favorite present.

I created this layout with the Scraptastic Club’s December kit: Naughty or Nice. I’ve had such fun this month as guest designer. The kit club is running four challenges this month with a great prize: a collection kit from Crate Paper. You don’t have to use the kit to participate in challenges. You can find the details here.

Supplies:

CS: Bazzill Basics

PP: Lily Bee, Echo Park, Bo Bunny

Journaling card: Lily Bee

Wood Shapes: Studio Calico

Stickers: Crate, Echo Park

Letter Stickers: Lily Bee, Cosmo Cricket, Basic Grey

Border Punch: Fiskars

Circle Punch: Marvy Uchida

Pen: Zip

Ink: Ranger

Sewing Machine: Bernina

Kit: Scraptastic Club

Scraptastic Club Guest Designer

It’s December and I am so happy to welcome in the holiday season. Today, I officially start my December Daily and my little one opens the first door of his Lego Advent calendar.

But first I want to share that I am a guest designer this month for Scraptastic Club. It’s a great kit club that gives you a choice of two kits each month. Both kits have great add-on options too. You can find the kits here. 

I chose the Naughty or Nice? kit.

Here’s my first project. I scrapped a photo of my Dad with my brothers on Christmas morning. I love this Crate ornament paper. I pop-dotted some of the ornaments for dimension then set off the paper by adding borders punched from cream cardstock down either side.

The large green die cut is Bo Bunny and it had a blue scallop design around the perimeter, which made the die cut too big for my design.  So, I cut off the blue and stitched a red frame to ground the die cut. On top, I added a tag using a cute reindeer stamp from Imaginesce and alphas from Lily Bee.

Scraptastic Club sponsors challenges each month with great prizes. Come play along. The first challenge is to use border punches and you have until Dec. 31 to upload your entry. The prize this month is the Random Collection from Crate Paper. Oh, I love that line!   You can find the challenges on the Scraptastic Club Blog here.

August Freehand Scraps Kit

I just love the August kit from Freehand Scraps and had a wonderful time this month as guest designer. The kit is chock full of papers and embellishments from Bo Bunny, Webster’s Pages, Basic Grey and Crate and they all worked perfectly together. Here is a photo of the August Kit:

Here is one of the layouts I made from the kit::

 

This is my friend’s little girl last Halloween. Isn’t she the sweetest? I used Bo Bunny's Gabrielle papers here with embellishments from Basic Grey's Out of Print collection.  I misted the lace sticker above the photo to match her outfit and used ink and stamps to re-color the large die-cut butterfly, which is shell colored in the kit.  The letter stickers are from Webster's Pages. Here’s a closeup of the titlework.

I don't normally put the title at the bottom of the page, but it fit the design here and allowed room at the top for the butterflies to roam free.

While I had this Bo Bunny line out, I though I’d make a card. I fussy cut the big butterfly from one of the patterned papers, inked the edges, then “painted” it with Claudine Hellmuth’s multi-medium matte. I love that stuff. It is similar to modge podge but isn’t as wet or shiny. The multi-medium helped to stiffen the butterfly a little to give it more body and also allowed me to mold the wings up a bit. I added some pearls from the kit to the butterfly’s body. 

To make the card base, I used a premade 5x7 notecard from American Crafts and cut a piece of pp for the front.  I sewed it on, tucking in a border of lace from the Crate trim card in the kit. To finish the card, I added a Webster's button tied with twine (also in the kit) and stamped a short sentiment.

I'll be back later this month with more projects from the August kit. For more information about Freehand Scraps, follow this link: http://www.freehandscraps.com/