Top 10 Projects of 2014

I love seeing everyone's round-up of their favorite projects of the year.  Here are mine for 2014 in the order that they appeared on my blog:

Snowman Tag:

First Winter Snow:

I'm Yours:

Valentine Frame:

People We Love, Places We Go, Things We Do:

Another Day, Another Round of Candy Land: 

Fueling Up:

December Daily: Joy

My Elf:

Merry and Bright:

You can see last year's favorites on this blog post. If you did a post on your favorites, I love to see yours. Please link it in the comments. 

I'll be back tomorrow with my first layout of 2015. Thanks so much for stopping by. 

Mini Envelope Valentine Frame

Hello everyone and Happy Valentine’s Day!  

I love re-purposing old frames. Today I am up on the Fancy Pants Designs blog with a Valentine project using a standard 5 x 7 inch wood frame. 

I got the idea to do a frame of little love letters after finding this McGill envelope punch at a thrift sale for $3. It makes the cutest little envelopes. 

I punched several envelopes from double sided paper from the Be Loved collection from Fancy Pants Designs.  It's such a sweet collection. I love the mix of yellow, aqua and grey with traditional pink and red.

The base of the project is the pretty yellow side of the Adoration paper from Be Loved, trimmed 5 x 7 inches to fit a standard frame. I added the mini envelopes I had punched then decorated them with buttons, stickers and ephemera.

After the piece was complete, I added a bright blue bird and a sentiment to the outer frame.  

Here’s another look at the final project.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope your day is extra sweet!

Going Batty: Repurposed Halloween Frame

I'm always on the lookout for simple frames. They are so fun and easy to alter for the holidays. This plain black frame - which I purchased at a church yard sale for a quarter - was just the thing for a bit of Halloween decor.  

The frame is 8 x 10 inches and was missing the glass front, which worked out perfectly for bats on pop-dots. I used a dark backdrop, some colorful patterned papers and a bat punch from Stampin' Up!

The paper, tag, stickers and button are all from Fancy Pants Designs. I used a mix of papers from the new Collecting Moments and Happy Go Lucky collections. I bent the bat wings up a bit for extra dimension. 

The bats are a play on the popular butterfly frames. 

I was looking through my blog posts and realized that I made Halloween frames in 2012 and 2011 too. 

Here's the one I made last year, using Echo Park Paper. This frame was smaller and was published in Paper Crafts magazine. 

In 2011, I made this Halloween frame while a guest designer for Echo Park. 

I've made several other Halloween projects in the last few years. Lots of treats, no tricks.  Here are the links:  

Owl Pillow Box Treat

Halloween Test Tubes

Monster Test Tubes

Haunted House

And one non-paper craft - a simple painted pumpkin:

Thanks so much for stopping by. Happy Hauntings!

Father's Day Gifts From Kids: Fancy Pants

I love watching the relationship between my Dad and my son.  For Father's Day, I wanted to give my Dad something personal from Cory, who is 4.  I did an interview with Cory, asking him some simple questions about my Dad, who he calls Pop Pop. 

I typed my questions and Cory's answers into a Word document than ran a piece of patterned paper through the printer. 

I love this cute paper from Fancy Pants Designs. The colorful hats on this notebook paper from the Swagger line were perfect. I topped the page with felt bow tie, also from Swagger. 

I thought I would add one more simple gift.  Cory loves gummy worms and Swedish fish and my Dad always has them on hand. They are the first thing Cory asks for when he visits.  

For this project, I used a small craft paint can, filled it with gummies and added a bit of decoration, also by Fancy Pants Designs. The sentiment says: My Pop's a great catch!  The cute fishie paper, polka dot tag and crab flair from the Down by the Shore collection were perfect!

Last year, Cory gave Dad a cute handprint hanging that Dad still has displayed in his office, so I have an inkling that Pop Pop will like these too. 

Bless This Nest: Echo Park Paper

My parents moved into a new house last year and I made this simple frame for their bookshelf.  The sentiment says: Bless This Nest. 

I used a small frame from a department store that was double matted. I removed the thick mats to give me room under the glass to create a scene. 

After removing the mats, I made a base of cardstock covered in burlap, stitching the two together.   

I used stickers to decorate the frame from Echo Park Paper. The wood veneers are Studio Calico and the alphas are Webster's Pages. Twine is from The Twinery. 

This project was published earlier this Spring in a special issue of Paper Crafts Magazine. 

Owl Canvas & Little Yellow Bicycle Giveaway

If you've followed my blog, you may have noticed that I have a soft spot for owls.  They are whimsical and fun and I can't help but be drawn to them. 

When Little Yellow Bicycle sent me the Cycling Team box for the Fern and Forest Boy collection, I immediately thought of owls and wanted to make an altered project. 

I started this project with a scene paper from Fern and Forest Boy.  The clouds and woodgrain were the perfect backdrop. 

Next, I played around with paper-piecing an pair of owls.  It took a couple tries to get the scale right. I drew  the owls on paper first. As you can see, in my first attempt, the mama owl was too big. 

I scaled down the mama owl, then added a paper-pieced baby owl.  I stitched each part separately, then pop dotted pieces for dimension. 

Once I had my owls ready, I filled in the rest of the scene and added a wood frame. 

I used pieces from Little Yellow Bicycle's Naturals, including the burlap sticker here and the cork butterfly and stick pin, to fill the empty spots. 

Here's the finished canvas: 

Giveaway: Little Yellow Bicycle was so generous to me that I wanted to share this collection with one of my blog readers. This giveaway will include 12 sheets of 6x6 Fern and Forest paper, two coordinating sticker sheets, a mix of stick pins and a flower kit. 

To enter the giveaway, please follow my blog and leave a comment below. Comments are open until midnight on April 22.  I'll announce the winner by random draw next Tuesday, April 23. 

You can see this project and other projects with Fern and Forest Boy and Fern and Forest Girl on the Little Yellow Bicycle blog.  Thank you so much 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.

Easy Halloween Décor – Repurposed Frame

I think Halloween may just be more fun to decorate for than Christmas. Less pressure but all the fun and no lights to untangle.

One of my favorite home decor projects is the repurposed frame.  I use an old frame I have around the house or a thrift store find. For this project, I used a black tabletop 5x7 frame and created a Halloween scene inside using Echo Park paper and stickers.

I used the Chillingsworth Manor collection and one of the papers in this line had October written on the B side.  I used that as my base.  To create the scene, I used a large journaling card with a haunted house and big full moon.  I messy stitched a few circles around the moon for a playful touch. Once I had the basic scene created, I added stickers on top of the journaling card.

Since I was putting the scene under the glass of the frame, I didn't want to have anything bulky on the page.  But I did create a little dimension by backing the stickers with cardstock and by using pop dots in a few places.  I also added a little spider hanging from twine, using orange licorice from Trendy Twine.  The playful skeleton from the Echo Park sticker sheet was the perfect ending touch to bring scene together.

Here's a close-up of the bottom of the frame.  This was a fun, fast, Halloween project.  My favorite kind!

Thanks for stopping by. Happy hauntings!

Handprint Father’s Day Idea & Card

I can’t believe we’re already into the middle of June and Father’s Day is just around the corner. My little guy is so close to my Dad, his Pop Pop, and each year I give Dad a Father’s Day present from Cory.

This year, Cory's giving Dad a painted set of handprints:

This project was really quick and easy to make.  You just need black acrylic paint, heavy cardstock, alphas and a willing toddler.  I painted my son's hands then he stamped them on cardstock.  It's best to do this right before bathtime.  Just sayin'. I got the idea for this project from pinterest.

Last year, Cory gave Dad a green tie:

　

And I’m giving Dad this card:

Which was published last month in PaperCrafts magazine's Card Creations:

How about your kids? What are you working on for Father’s Day?

Linking handprint project to Tip Me Tuesday here.