Teacher Appreciation Week - Thursday

A week of teacher appreciation gifts was a great idea... right up until I saw Tuesday's and Wednesday's gifts in Aaron's backpack! Aaagh! I emailed his teacher so she could ask him if he has anything in his bag to turn in. Silly little boy...

Sometimes a gift card is the perfect gift. I do worry that it doesn't seem very personal... that's where the "delivery system" takes center stage. Once a gift card is wrapped up in pretty packaging, it becomes fabulous!
Using a 4 x 12" piece of card stock, I designed a pretty gift card holder. Since my gift card is for that yummy coffee shop we all know and love, I thought the BIG mug in the Tea Shoppe stamp set would be perfect. I put the holder together so that it looks like the card is sitting in the mug.   :} 
I used a 22" piece of Riding Hood Red Taffeta ribbon to tie the gift card holder closed. Since I didn't want the ribbon to fall off once the holder was open, I adhered a 4-1/4" square of Chocolate Chip card stock to the back. 
If I were personally hand-delivering these gift cards, I would have stopped there. But since they were being delivered by two little boys, I enclosed them in Clear Envelopes for a little extra safe keeping.   :}  

And now... a few more pages from Aaron's animal alphabet book- 

Teacher Appreciation Week - Wednesday

While making the teacher appreciation gift packaging for the Wednesday gift, I stumbled across a really nice color combination: Basic Black, Melon Mambo, and Soft Sky. Yowza! These colors are great together!! 

Everyone can use a fun clip-on scent holder for the car, right?? The bags are tied closed with Melon Mambo Scallop Dots ribbon. Then I used 1/8" Basic Black Taffeta ribbon to tie on the tag. 
For the tag, I started by stamping (Forever with You) in black StazOn®, and die cutting the image with the Window Frames Framelits. Then I adhered a strip of Melon Mambo card stock. After punching out a layer of Soft Sky card stock with the Decorative Label punch, I wrote my greeting, and attached it to the tag with Dimensionals. A single rhinestone adds just the right amount of "bling." 

For those of you following Aaron's animal alphabet book pages, here are a few more for your classroom and/or punch art inspiration...  

Teacher Appreciation Week - Tuesday

I love how paper-crafting can turn something ordinary into something adorable. And giving it as a gift... well, that's just awesome! 

For Teacher Appreciation Week, I thought it would be nice for the boys to bring little treats wrapped up in cute packaging. I'm trying to keep the gifts small and light enough so they don't get destroyed during the twelve whole minutes on the bus.  ;)  The gift for Tuesday is strawberry flavored gum, wrapped in Real Red DSP. 
To ink the strawberry stamp (Fruit & Flowers): I inked the berry in Real Red ink, used a Blender Pen like an eraser to remove the red ink from the leaf area, and then colored the leaf and stem with a Lucky Limeade Marker. 
The image is punched out with the 1-3/8" Circle punch, then layered over Lucky Limeade card stock die-cut on the Delicate Doilies Sizzlit. A doubled bow of Lucky Limeade Baker's Twine adds the perfect finishing touch. 

In my last post, I started sharing Aaron's ABC animal alphabet book. I know several teachers who will like these, and I also know several punch art fans who will get some cute ideas. Here are a few more of the pages... 

 

Teacher Appreciation Week - Monday

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to all the teachers out there! That's right folks... it's teacher appreciation week. My boys will be bringing cute little gifts to their teachers this week. Here's what they took on Monday: 

This is super easy to create! I wrapped some Sunshine & Sprinkles DSP around a box of fish-shaped candy, and adhered it together with Sticky Strip. The polka-dot ornament from Delightful Decorations is stamped in Daffodil Delight and punched out with the Ornament punch to create the fish body. A flower from the Boho Blossoms punch is folded in half to create the side fin. (I used a retired flower punch for the other fins.) And the googlie eye just makes me smile! 

As a former Kindergarten teacher (and current substitute teacher), I could not resist sharing an AMAZING project my son brought home. I know that all of my readers who are teachers for the "little ones" will want to make this book next year! And for those of you who love punch art, there are lots of ideas in this project. 

The students created a page when each letter was introduced. Now, at the end of the school year, Aaron's teacher has laminated every page and with two binder rings at the top, assembled a book for each student to keep. The animals are adorable, and of course remind me of cute punch art animals.  >>>Remember the walrus ordeal??  ;)  
Be sure to check back throughout the week as I share the rest of the teacher appreciation gifts and animal alphabet book!

trends in papercrafting

Sometimes it's fun to be trendy... run with the IN crowd. Just be sure to put down your craft scissors before you run.   ;) 

This card is the "cat's meow," and has some of the latest craft trends all over it! I started with the idea of wanting to make a card using blues and purples. Then I thought giving it sort of an ombre look would be great. And you can't leave out chevrons or flags. Throw in some Baker's Twine and a good amount of white space, and you've got yourself one of the hippest cards in town! 

I used the Tasteful Trim Bigz XL die to cut scraps of (from top to bottom) Wisteria Wonder, Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum, Baja Breeze, Island Indigo, and Pool Party card stock. Wisteria Wonder Baker's Twine tied into a bow around the 1-1/4 x 2-1/2" Pool Party DSP looks pretty darn cute. 
What? What stamp? Oh! You want to know where I got that neat-o greeting that's stamped in Elegant Eggplant? Um, yeah. That's from an awesome (and very trendy!) Hostess stamp set in the upcoming catalog. That's right, Banner Greetings is a Hostess stamp set. Why? Because we know that you want to be like all the other super-cool people and host your own stampin' party so you can get cute, trendy, free stuff too! C'mon... you know you want too...   ;) 

National Scrapbooking Day 2013

I usually laugh at all the "made up" holidays (I'll try to find the energy to create an apology if anyone is offended). I mean, do we really need a National Sandwich Day?? A National Chocolate Covered Raisin Day??? You are dealing with someone who doesn't even understand Sweetest Day! But why, oh why, isn't National Scrapbooking Day celebrated with even greater flair than a Federal Holiday?! We should all have the day off work, free babysitting, and hours of scrappin' time. Oh, and maybe even a short parade where they throw out embellishments and ribbon instead of candy!  We certainly shouldn't be freezing our dupas off in the rain at a campout for our cute little Cubscouts. Perhaps I'll stage a sit scrap-in next year... 

I made this 12x12 digital layout with some fun photos I took of my oldest son playing in the snow. My boys were so happy to finally get a chance to use their sleds from Santa. It was pretty strange for us to have to wait until the end of March to see this much snow!  Of course it was gone as quickly as it fell...
I love how my title turned out!! The letters to spell spring are "punches" filled with "paper."  I will probably copy and paste the same title onto the pages for my youngest son. Heck, I might just create duplicate pages and change the photos! Have I mentioned how much I love My Digital Studio?! 
So what are you scrapbooking today??? 

let's talk about scrapbooking

Hello and Happy Friday!! I'm hoping to spend the weekend doing a little scrapbooking, but somehow I have the feeling I'll be taking more pictures to "scrapbook later" than I will actually scrapbook. Well, that is if the rain doesn't turn into a downpour at our campout.
I've been pondering scrapbook styles lately... 
My scrapbooks are primarily 12x12 full-page layouts. I will occasionally create a smaller album for a trip or special event. I also like to make digital pages just for the heck of it (these pages of my boys are saved onto a disc for them to keep). But there are so many options... page size, bound book vs individual pages, single page vs full-page layout, traditional vs digital or hybrid... 

Inside my scrapbooks, you will find pages created with "traditional products" --

Note: the chalkboard art technique looks just as great on scrapbook pages as it does on cards. Be sure to try all of your card-making techniques on your scrapbook pages! 

You will also find digital pages...

Note: I started this page to measure 11 x 8-1/2, but I have plans to import it into a 12x12 project. I LOVE that I can do that in seconds with My Digital Studio! 

...and "hybrid" pages. Hybrid projects combine both digital and traditional products.

Note: One great benefit of digi-scrapping is editing my photo size multiple times while creating the layout. On this layout, I ended up making one photo cover the entire 12x12 page - LOVE!

Note: traditional supplies include stamped and punched layers, chipboard, buttons, etc.

So what are your thoughts on scrapbooking? Are you a traditional or digital scrapper - or both! What's your preferred size? Do you scrap single or two-page layouts? What types of projects do you like to look at online? I'd love to get a good discussion going!!

***** Isn't that title/ journaling box on the digi page neat?? Click on over to my Facebook page to get it (and two more!) for free. They will look great on your scrapbook pages! Print them now so you can use them tomorrow while you're scrapping for National Scrapbooking Day!  :}  *****

sketch happy... again

Two posts in one day???! Whoa, my little speck of the craft world has turned upside down! But I found a nifty sketch, and it was one of the cards I made yesterday, and I really want to share it, and I have so much stuff to share next week, and the weekend is coming so you might want an idea for an easy card...    ;)

There you go - my take on Retro Sketch #61. I stamped my greeting from the Trust God stamp set in Crisp Cantaloupe (ah yes, a new In Color, yay!) onto the 3-1/2 x 4-3/4" layer of Whisper White card stock. 
After tying Wisteria Wonder Baker's Twine around the 1-1/2 x 4" strip of Patio Party DSP twice, I attached the DSP layer with Dimensionals. Two punched hearts were the only embellishment I needed to finish up this simple card.  So, what do you think?

sketch happy

Yay, yay, yay! I had a good chunk of time to stamp yesterday!! It was fabulous. I made a ton of cards, and tried out a few sketches. Here's what I came up with for the Paper Players Sketch 143:

I chose all of my papers from the same package (Patio Party), so my card came together very quickly. The two Paper Daisies and the Summer Starfruit Dahlia layer nicely, and are adhered with my favorite liquid glue. 
Do you spy something new and fabulous??? My sentiment is from the Label Love stamp set, which coordinates ever so nicely with the Artisan Label punch.
Well, I'm off to sub again today... Kindergarten - the BEST! Don't have too much fun without me!   :}

introducing IBJ sketch #16

If you've hung around my blog for a while, you know how much I love a good card sketch. I even like to create them for myself - and for you, too! Let me introduce you to IBJ (INKlings by Jenn) sketch #16: 

Clean, simple, and easy to stamp a card in minutes. My fabulous upline had a fun team meeting in April... We had an array of stampin' goodies to work with, and some of my card sketches as inspiration. Here are some of the cards made with IBJ sketch #16: 

Fun, right??? I'm looking forward to our meeting in May, where each of us brings our own, new sketch. I can't wait!!