You're At The Top Of My List

Merry Christmas, everyone.  You, my friends and blog readers, are definitely at the top of my list.  My best wishes to you and yours this holiday season.

Supplies:
Stickers/Chipboard: Echo Park
Wood veneer: Studio Calico
Brad: Echo Park
Ribbon: May Arts
Twine: Trendy Twine
Burlap: Canvas Corp
Sewing Machine: Bernina

Teacher Gifts: Owl Treat Bags

These little owl treat bags are one of my favorite things to make. They're easy, don’t require fancy tools and are always a hit with recipients.  The sentiment can be changed to fit the occasion. I used these as holiday gifts for teachers and staff.

To make each owl, I cut a 3 inch by 12 inch strip of patterned paper. I used the Once Upon A Christmas collection from Little Yellow Bicycle and scored the paper strips at 4.5 inches from either end. The score marks gave the owls a 3-inch base, perfect for flat-bottomed treat sacks from Martha Stewart. After scoring, I folded the paper into a tent shape.

To make the owl's eyes, I punched two large circles from cardstock, covered them with adhesive, then added twine and googly eyes.  I used Trendy Twine in Holly (green) and Holly Berry (green/red mix). I have a tutorial for making twine circles on this post.

This is a side view of the treat bags. To make the sentiments, I ran bits of scrap patterned paper through my printer. One owl says:  Whooooo's a great teacher?  You are!  The other owl says: Merry Christmas, Y'owl.

We'd love to have you play along in the Trendy Twine monthly challenge. You have until December 31 to enter. There's a great prize up for grabs. You can find out all the details here on the Trendy Twine blog.

Thanks for stopping by!

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!

Christmas Bookmarks: Twine Tassels

Note: My December Daily is at the bottom of this post.

We're big book lovers in my family and it's always handy to have a cute bookmark. No dog-eared pages, please! For Christmas this year, we are doing a holiday countdown with children's books.  We have 24 wrapped books under the tree and each night in December my little one picks a package, opens it, and we read the book inside. 

I thought it would be fun to add a cute holiday bookmark to one of the packages. This is what I made:

Bookmarks are quick and easy to make and are a great use for scrap paper.  The base of my bookmark is about 1.5 inches wide by 6 inches tall and is made from two coordinating papers from Echo Park collections. The diagonal stripe is from EP's So Happy Together and the polka dot is from Hello Summer. Though neither is a Christmas line, they work well here with the colorful snowman sticker from the Holly Jolly collection.

The twine is Trendy Twine and I made the tassel using Holly Berry, a fun mix of red and green.

Trendy Twine is sponsoring a snowman-theme challenge this month. Come play along! There's a great prize up for grabs. Just link your twine project by Dec. 31. You'll find all the details to the challenge here.  You can find other projects from the design team on the Trendy Twine blog.

And continuing with my December Daily. This is Day 2:

For this day, I documented our Lego City Advent Calendar.  This sounded like a great idea, but it was a bust for us because our son was too young. We will pack this away to use when he is a little older. 

Day 3:

For Day 3, I had a church program from a Christmas luncheon I attended that was just about the same size as my foundation pages, 6x8.  I added a small strip of green patterned paper to the right side of the program and it fit perfectly in my album. Yay!  No need to make a foundation page for this day. On the right is a photo from the luncheon and one of Cory on a swing outside the church.  

A Twine Birthday Giveaway!

The design team at Trendy Twine has a little something up its sleeve today:  a surprise birthday party for Lesley, the owner.  Today is her big day and to celebrate, we've each made birthday cards for her, which we mailed earlier this week.

Each team member is spotlighting Lesley's card on our blogs today. This is the card I made.

I tied a bit of Twisted Lime twine around the chipboard vase then curled it for a decorative effect.  To curl the twine, I wet the twine with a glue medium and rolled it around a toothpick to dry.  When I removed the toothpick, the twine held its curlicue shape.

The team invites you to join the party with a hop to each blog. You'll find lots of great tips with twine along the way and a few prizes too.

The next stop on the hop is Jamie. If you get lost, just pop over to the Trendy Twine blog for the full lineup.

The prize on this stop is 20 yards of holiday twine.

You'll get 5 yards each of the holiday colors: Berry, Holly and Holly Berry plus 5 yards of Orange Truffle which we are featuring this month (not pictured).  To enter the drawing, follow this blog and leave a comment here on this post by 9 pm EST on Tuesday, Nov. 20. A winner will be chosen by random.org and posted here on Wednesday, Nov. 21. 

Happy birthday, Lesley!  

Products used:
CS: American Crafts
PP: Crate
Chipboard: Crate
Stickers: Pebbles Inc (sentiment), Echo Park Paper (flower)
Pearl: Close To My Heart
Wood veneer: Studio Calico
Twine: Trendy Twine
Sewing Machine: Bernina 

Big Welcome: Baby Card With Twine Fringe

I'm sometimes asked what is my favorite type of card to make. I usually say thank you cards, but I've been having a change of heart lately. I think baby cards might be my favorite.  Like a sweet baby, a sweet baby card is hard to resist.

For this card, I used Bella Bvld and fussy cut a giraffe from patterned paper. I added a tuft of twine fringe to his neck using Trendy Twine's Orange Truffle. To make the fringe, I made a series of loops, placed very tightly together on the underside of the giraffe's neck.

After I had all the loops, I turned the giraffe over and cut off the loops to make fringe, trimming the the twine to the desired length.

Here's a closeup of the fringe:

Trendy Twine is hosting a "thankful" challenge this month and we'd love to see your entries. There's a great prize up for grabs. You can find out all the details on this post.  You have until Nov. 30 to link your project.  For more ideas on how to use twine, please visit the Trendy Twine blog.

Happy Autumn Days - Sketch Challenge

Every year, the theme park in our state has a Halloween outing for kids.  The park does a spooky event at night for adults, but during the day, it's family friendly. Events include trick-or-treating from park characters and picking your own pumpkin from the patch.

For Cory, any outing that involves the plastic pumpkin is a good one as he associates it with candy.  When we went to the park's pumpkin patch, I tried to convince Cory to leave his plastic pumpkin in the stroller so he could pick a real pumpkin.  But as you can see, that didn't happen.  

For this layout, I used Simple Stories, mostly Harvest Lane with a little bit of Fabulous and Awesome thrown in.  I used paper both from 12x12 sheets and a 6x6 paper pad.  I love the smaller patterns on the 6x6, especially the little journaling cards like the title block, "Autumn Days."  

To color the doily, I used spray mist from October Afternoon.  It gives great coverage and dries quickly.  The kraft leaf below it is from the dollar spot at Target. I just added a little ink and stitching and it was perfect for my page.

Here's a closeup of the embellishment cluster on the bottom left. At first, I had just the tree and fence there and they looked a little lonely. So I added the house, which balanced it more.  For a decorative touch, I added a bit of orange/brown twine around the tree from Trendy Twine.

The layout is based on the new sketch by My Creative Sketches for our monthly challenge. 

The sketch challenge starts today and runs through Nov. 15. We'd love to have you play along and we have a great prize for the winner, chosen by random draw.  You can find all the details on the My Creative Sketches blog. 

Whooooo Wants A Treat? Happy Owl-o-ween!

I'm on a little owl kick but I just can't help it.  I love the exaggerated features, especially the big eyes, and owls are the perfect critter for Halloween fun.

For this project, I used Echo Park's Chillingsworth Manor collection and Trendy Twine's orange licorice to whip up a Halloween treat bag.  This was a really fast and simple project.

I started by cutting a piece of double sided patterned paper 3 x 12 inches, scored at 4.5 inches from either end.  I folded the paper into a tent, stitched across the top to secure it shut, then added a large triangle beak.

The scoring measurements gave the treat container a 3-inch base which fits flat-bottomed treat sacks from Martha Stewart.  I buy the MS bags at Michaels and always keep some in my stash. 

To make the owl's eyes, I used a punch to cut two large circles from black cardstock, covered them with adhesive, then added twine.  To wind the twine, I started by tying a knot and using that knot to anchor the twine in the center of the circle.  Then I carefully wound the twine tightly around the knot and around the circle until all the cardstock was covered.

After I made the twine circles, I added large googly eyes.  I glued the twine circles on top edge of the triangle nose and added a die-cut journaling spot behind the eyes. Lastly, I ran a journaling card through my printer to add the sentiment: Whooooo wants a treat?

You can find more Halloween-themed design team projects on the Trendy Twine blog all this month.  You can also play along! To join the Trendy Twine October challenge, see the details on this post.

Linking to: Tip Me Tuesday.

Tutorial: Halloween Treats For Your Little Monsters

I think Halloween brings out the kid in all of us.  I love this holiday and look forward to it every year.  Not only is the actual evening fun, but so is the whole month in anticipation.

The Trendy Twine design team was challenged this month to make "spooky but cute treat packaging."  I decided to make some little monster test tubes.  

These were really quick and easy to do.  They started life as a set of Wilton Halloween sprinkles which I emptied and filled with Halloween M&Ms. The test tubes came in an acrylic stand.  I turned the stand around to display the monsters so I'd have more working room.

To make the monsters, I hand-drew and cut whimsical shapes on patterned paper from Echo Park's Halloween line, Chillingsworth Manor.

I added some twine fringe or loops to each monster.  To make the fringe, I put down a strip of adhesive on the back, then tightly looped the twine on top, overlapping the monster shape.  I used Orange Licorice and Grape Licorice twine.

After I had the loops, I trimmed the twine to make fringe. I used the same method to make the curly hair on the fourth monster, but made smaller loops and didn't trim them.

To make the monster faces, I used felt and googly eyes.

To see more Halloween projects from the Trendy Twine design team, visit the Trendy Twine blog.  To join our Halloween challenge, please see the details here.  Linking this project to Tip Me Tuesday.

Birthday Party Invitation with "Trendy" Balloons

To enter the drawing for the My Creative Scrapbook prizes, please see the blog hop here.

I love the trend of using twine in papercrafting. It's so fun and versatile.  Twine is great for packaging, of course, but I also love to incorporate it into cards and layouts.

Here, I used Trendy Twine's Chocolate Sprinkles as balloon strings on a child's birthday invitation.

Patterned paper and embellishments are from October Afternoon, mostly the Cakewalk line.

Here's a closeup of the balloons. I used a punch, pop-dotted the balloons on the card, then added twine.

Trendy Twine has a challenge this month to use twine on a boy-themed project.  The project can feature boys or it can be something for a boy. There's a great prize for the winner! You can find all the details here. For more projects from the Trendy Twine design team, please visit the Trendy Twine blog.

Altered Baby Gift Card Box - Trendy Twine

This month, the Trendy Twine team is featuring a fun mix of light blue and dark brown twine in its projects. Our challenge was to create something 3D for a boy using ribbon and the featured twine called Chocolate Sprinkles.

I decided to make a tri-fold gift card box, the type where the doors swing open and the box is held shut with a slider.  The finished project looks like this:

It started life like this, as a Kohl's gift box for men, which I bought on clearance after Father's Day.  I thought it would be super easy to alter, but it turned out to be a little more complicated.

My plan was to cover the box with patterned paper. But when the doors were open and flat, the box measured a wee bit more than 12 inches end to end, making it impossible to cover with a standard piece of scrapbook paper.  

I looked through my stash and saw that patterned paper by Canvas Corp is printed on one side then completely solid - with no label - on the back side. Perfect. That gave me the extra half-inch I needed. I stamped a swirl design on the plain side of the paper, then used it to covered the box. 

To make the slider, I used a printed piece of Canvas Corp Paper and the original slider from the Kohl's box, wrapping it in twine.  To make the decorative element, I used a journaling card from Jillibean Soup and flipped the box to a vertical orientation. 

I added a Soup Label sentiment (There's No Bunny Like You), a doily and a chipboard bunny. I tied a wee bit of ribbon around the bunny's neck then added a pom pom tail from twine.  

To make the pom pom, I wrapped twine around fork tines, tied it tightly in the center, then snipped the ends. 

If you'd like to join our challenge this month, you can find all the details here on the Trendy Twine blog.

Tutorial: How To Make A Looped Twine Flower

I took a little break from layouts and cards to make an altered project: decorated flip flops.  I don’t know if these will be super practical to wear, but they were fun to make and that’s what counts. :)   

I used Trendy Twine’s Krazy for Kraft to make the twine flowers on these flip flops.  The flowers were easy to do, but you will need to fashion a little loom to make the loops.  The size of the flowers depends on the size of your loom.  My loom was 3-inches across because I needed fairly large flowers for the flip flops, but you could make the loom any size and follow the same principle.

To make the loom, I cut a 3-inch circle from corrugated cardboard. I marked it like a clock with 12 at the top and 6 at the bottom.  I didn’t measure the distances between each time.  I just eyeballed it.  It isn’t necessary to be super accurate with these flowers.  Once I had my circle marked like a clock, I stuck straight pins in at each number.   This was my loom.

To make the flowers, I cut an 8-foot piece of twine. I started the twine by looping one end over the pin at 12, then looped it down to 6.  From there, I looped 11 down to 5 and 10 down to 4, etc., looping opposite numbers each time.  Do this until you have made two complete passes of the loom.

To secure the loops, use the remaining length of twine to backstitch through each petal then tie off.  This is the back of the flower and won't show.

To remove the flower from the loom, take out the pins.  Flip the flower over and add a decorative center, if desired. I added brads from Echo Park Paper. 

You can find more beach-themed twine projects on the Trendy Twine blog. To play along with the August challenge, visit the blog here and link your project. We can't wait to see what you make!