Shabby chic card

Let's make this shabby chic card - no pattern paper required!

 

First you will need some mists - Maya Mist or Glimmer Mist or anything similar will do.

Next, you will need a card base (I used kraft cardstock) and some masks.  Arrange the masks however you'd like.  Also make sure your work surface is well covered.

Now spray with multiple colors being careful not to overlap each color too much.

Now blot any extra ink off and remove the masks.

Next ink a large background stamp (I recommend using staz-on or another waterproof ink in case your card is still damp), and stamp as many times as it takes to cover the entire background.

Now add a cluster of embellishments and Viola,  you are done!

Decorate your own chipboard!

Ever wonder what to do with all those plain chipboard pieces? I admit, most of mine are all hiding together in a drawer. But with the pieces that I got in my December kit, I decided to dress them up a bit and boy was I surprised at how easy that was! All I needed was a bit of paint and some stickles, and I had some beautiful accents for both my mini-book and my layouts.

For the candy canes I painted them white and added a stripe of red stickles. And for the decorative edges, I painted them and applied a similar color stickles for an all-over glittery effect.

For the stocking I painted it red and added "fur" with picket fence distress stickles.

For the stars I painted them cream and added gold or crystal stickles all over.

For the ornaments I painted them different colors and added a similar color of stickles with gold stickles for the top of the ornament.

Here you can see my finished ornaments on my layout, all I had to do was add a bow with some gold string.

And here you can see how I decorated my tree mini-album.

Paper stocking garland

I loved this idea that I saw in scrapbooks etc. magazine this month:

There are many ways you could do this: they suggested stuffing each one with cotton balls and a small treat.  Their stocking were stitched together, I stapled mine.  If you didn't want to do a countdown calendar, you could still create some for a great looking garland.  Here is mine:

Some of my stocking have kid's recipes or activity pages in them.  Here is the template I used for my stockings.  Open the image in print-preview then englarge until it fills the page, print on cardstock and cut out (need 2 for each stocking). Use the leftover paper from each print-out to make the stocking toppers.
http://www.freecraftunlimited.com/templates/images/christmas-stocking-554x800.gif

Cupcake topper tutorial

It is so easy to make your very own unique cupcake toppers. These ones are birthday themed but you could do this for ANY holiday (including Halloween)! All you need is a die-cutting machine (or a neat punch shape), or possibly the patience to cut out several shapes by hand, and some coordinating cardstock and toothpicks.

Here's what you'll need along with some glue and toothpicks.

Start by cutting out your shape - I set my machine at 1 1/2".

Then punch your circles. For one dozen cupcake toppers you'll need 12 smaller cirlces and 24 larger circles.  I cut my smaller circles with a 1 1/2" punch and the larger with a 1 3/4" punch.

Now glue all the layers together putting two of the larger circles right side out (so the texture shows on both sides). Another idea is to adhere the birthday child's age on the opposite side!

Now smash a toothpick between the two larger circles (make sure you used plenty of glue).

And there you have it - your own personal cupcake topper!

Tutorial for my 2012 hanging calendar

by Nathalie

Today, I will show you how you can easily create a calendar like the one I made with the TTT September kit #2. As soon as I saw this paper (Simple Stories It's Your Day) in the kit, I knew what I was going to do with it!

You will need:
- the paper above
- at least 3 sheets of patterned papers
- 12 horizontal photos sized to 3.75x2.5
- about 12 inches of wire and mini clothespins
- nose plier

1/ Cut the twelve months out of the It's Your Day paper:

2/ Cut twelve pieces of patterned paper to 4.25x6 inches:

3/ Adhere each month on the bottom portion of your patterned papers and handwrite (or stamp) the numbers for each day (looking at a 2012 calendar online):

4/ Trim your photos to 3.75x2.5 and adhere them on top of each month card (the width should match):

5/ Using about 12 inches of wire and a nose plier, bend it until it looks like a hanger but don't close the top part before sliding 2 mini clothespin through it:

6/ Attach your twelve month in order with the clothespins and decorate with ribbon and bingo pieces (in the kit). Here is a side view:

This one will be a Christmas gift to my parents as I always make them a photo calendar every year :) Please link us if you create one!

Flower Power: Fabric Flowers

For Pages or as Hair Bows

Right now fabric flowers are all the rave. There is all sorts of uses for them from scrapbook pages, altered art to hair bows for your little cutie. I am going to demonstrate how make them using scraps of fabric and felt and an a clip. Feel free to alter it as you need to use up the scraps you have or for different uses.

Supplies:

• hot glue gun
• hair clip (if making a hair bow)
• needle and embroidery floss
• button
• felt scraps
• about a 12 inch by 3-4 inch scrap of fabric

Instructions:

1. Start with folding your strip of fabric in half
2. Then sew with large stitches across the bottom folded edge (if you like frayed edges you can reverse this.) Make sure you not the end before starting so you can pull it tight.
3. Once you get all the way across the bottom of the strip pull it tight and it will curl up into a semi circle shape.
4. Put the two raw edges together and stitch together wrapping the stitches around the edges so it won't fray. Once done tie off and you will have a circle.
5. Then trace circles onto your felt. I used 2 different sizes of thread rolls.
6. Cut them out and glue one onto the back side of your flower. This holds it all together and helps keep the shape of the flower nicely. If you are making a hair bow this also makes a nice pad to put your clip on. Use a big clump of hot glue and glue the circle onto your flower.
7. Cut out some more circles in a contrasting color if you like. You can also cut little notches in them for fun.
8. Glue one of these onto the front of your flower.
9. Glue the other smaller circle onto the top of that.
10. Thread a button with some floss and tie.
11. Glue that onto your flower. Make sure not to use too much in this step or the glue will come through the button holes.
12. Next you will want to wrap your clip to make it stick in your cutie's hair better. Do this with a scrap of fabric and wrap it around the top portion of the clip. I usually wrap it around 3 times. Once the glue is dry cut off the excess.
13. Glue this onto your flower (fabric side of clip onto the circle pad in the back.)
14. Walla now your little cutie is even cuter. OR decorate scrapbook pages, mini albums, cards, home decor items, bags or gifts with these. The wider the scrap of fabric the bigger the bow will be.

{Use your kit scraps} Confetti ribbon!

by Nathalie

Before I pass on the blog to Carrie, I wanted to close my series today with a fun way to use little tiny scraps:

I will show you how I made this festive confetti ribbon. All I used was a hole punch, scotch tape and small coordinating scraps of papers:

After punching a whole bunch of confettis, I lined them up loosely:

Then I adhered scotch tape on top pushing here and there to make sure that it gets covered. You can repeat until you have your desired length of tape:

And that is it! Of course the tape no longer sticks so you need to add glue on the underside in order to attach it to your wrapped present.

I hope to have inspired you to use up that box of scraps! I will be back here in October! Thank you for visiting :)

{Use your kit scraps} Make easy garlands!

by Nathalie

To continue working on our overflowing box of kit scraps, today, I will show you an easy way to make garlands. I just made this one for Halloween but a Christmas one would look great in the tree! Or wrapped around presents! The possibilities are endless and they are fun to make!
Supplies:
- pile of scraps
- circle punches of different sizes
- sewing machine
- distress ink (optional)

1/ Punch a bunch of circles out of your scraps in different sizes. Ink the edges if you'd like.

2/ Select them somewhat randomly and feed them in your sewing machine. They don't even have to be glued. Don't worry about centering them either. In my opinion, the imperfections add charm to this project.

Simple as that! Have fun!