Brown paper packages tied up with string...

Are you wrapping your packages in brown paper and tying them with twine this year?
I am!

But what happens if you don't have tags {and don't have the time...or maybe desire...to make them}?
The Twinery to the rescue!

I found this beautiful paper at the World Market {I can't resist paisley} and I will be wrapping our presents in it.
I am using twine to distinguish the presents from each other - especially the ones with a similar shape, like these:


I have wrapped each gift in a separate color of twine from The Twinery - each family member has their own color. So when we are opening presents I can see easily that it will be going to my husband because it is wrapped in Peapod twine.
If it is in Pink Sorbet twine it will be for my daughter.
If it is in Cappuccino twine it will be for my oldest son.
Mine will have Lilac twine...and for my youngest son I still haven't decided...maybe I'll go with some bright & cheery Lemondrop!

Give it a try!



Card Supplies:
Cardstock: (White) Georgia Pacific
Patterned paper: (In Love, So Sophie collection) My Minds Eye
Other paper: (Chipboard) Kraft Outlet; (Paper Bag Paper) Kraft Outlet;
Fibers: (Caribbean, Peapod, & Mandarin twine) The Twinery;
Font: (Coffee Tin); (Edwardian Script ITC Semi-Expanded); (CK Urban); (Colonna Mt); (Century Gothic); (CK Becky);
Tool: (trimmer, scissors) Fiskars
Software: GIMP
Other: printer

READ All About It

It's not too late to get some great Pink Paislee goodies 15% off at A Walk Down Memory Lane, but November is quickly coming to an end...so you'd better hurry up!


I created this layout about my daughter learning to read using the Pink Paislee Pop Fashion Parachute Pants 12 x 12 paper as the base and matted my focal picture on DCVW cardstock. I added some Maya Road pins, a sprinkling of brads, a few {digital} library cards created by Shimelle {I changed the color of the original cards and added the text with GIMP}, and voila!

I've been framed!

I picked up these cute frames awhile back in the Target dollar spot...in a package of three! (33 cents...I couldn't pass them up!) I added in a computer generated sentiment and some flowers I made using double sided Bo Bunny papers. I just sat down and started folding and messing with the paper until it looked flower-like.

Here is the finished frame:

Here you can see the depth of the flowers:

And a little detail shot for you:


Supplies:
Frame: Target
Paper: Bo Bunny

Polly want a cracker?

It has been about 5 years since the last time I saw my grandparents (my dad's parents), and they are now at my Uncle & Aunt's house just an hour away! I try to send them pictures of the kids regularly, but with the ease of e-mail and digital photos I sometimes just don't get around to getting pictures printed and put in the mail.

We went to visit them on Saturday and I wanted to bring them some pictures. I thought it would be fun to make them a box to keep them in, so that is what I did.


I started out with a cracker box from some of my favorite crackers - Wheat Crisps from Trader Joe's (basically their version of Wheat Thins). I also used some "chipboard" from a Joe's O's cereal box (again, thanks, Trader Joe's!). I cut the Joe's O's box to make a lining for the cracker box to give it a bit more stability and to add that little lip that holds the lid in place.

In order to cover the inside and outside with paper I wanted to use some thin paper since it is a bit easier to work with on all the corners, so I grabbed some Miss Elizabeth's paper that I bought at the Dollar Tree awhile back. I didn't have enough for the whole box, so I covered the lid with some plain tan paper from The Paper Company. I am a huge fan of ModPodge for adhering paper to chipboard (or cereal boxes) - I used it on the inside and outside of the box and it worked wonderfully!

After the box was assembled and the ModPodge was dry, I added a couple of finishing touches...a Prima flower and some ribbon (the ribbon was left over from my wedding...7 years ago!). I created the "We are family" tag with GIMP and a Hero Arts stamp and colored it with BIC Mark It markers. I added a few different Distress Inks to give the tag and the lid some personality.

Happy Bird-day

I created this card for a few different challenges. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. I printed some digital papers from Raspberry Road onto cardstock and used those for the patterned paper strips. I drew the bird myself and made it into a digital stamp, then printed it (and the sentiment) onto chipboard (aka - an old cereal box). I finished it off with some distressing/inking and some tiny Prima flowers.

Supplies:
Papers: Raspberry Road Design
Inks: Tim Holtz Distress Ink
Flowers: Prima

Tough Stuff

(Digital Layout)

I used:
-GIMP
-Raspberry Road Antebellum Papers & Elements
-Microsoft Office Clip Art
-Free Digital Scrapbooking Black Epoxy Alpha

My first digital layout!

I have worked with digital stuff before, but this is my first actual "layout" done completely digitally.



The pictures are me and each of our three kids after they were born. Everything was done in GIMP with papers and embellishments from Shabby Princess and Free Digital Scrapbooking. The font for "Worth it all" was a CK freebie.

What do you think?

Baby bellies...

I am in the process of creating a layout about my baby bellies.

Each picture on the left page was taken the day of (or night before) I gave birth - the pictures go in birth order from left to right. On the right page are the pictures of the kids telling the baby "Come out!" (so obviously I didn't have one of those for my pregnancy with Lacie).

This is what I currently have going:

(Click on the image to view it larger)

I used DCWV cardstock for the background. The toile paper was in a little kit/pack of paper I got from the local scrapbooking store. The black is just basic black cardstock (I think I got it at WalMart). There's some vellum in there, too.

I printed the pictures on plain white cardstock to make them look a little old fashioned. I digitally distressed them with some overlays from Second Mile Designs and then distressed them after printing by roughing up the edges with a nail sanding block. All the pictures are mounted on pop dots.

I used the Fiskars Threading Water punch and the Coluzzle templates for the circles. The flowers are from Prima and the black centers were done with Scribbles. I added some ribbon I got from Michaels and some circle/swirl clips from Heidi Swapp.

Here are some layout ideas I have thought about using (same basic idea...just different embellishments and titles):




The pictures were taken at a different time of day...the real colors are more like the second & third pictures show. (And in the third picture I show some Tim Holtz Sprocket Gears.)

Do you have some ideas for me on how to finish this up? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Tea Party Placecards

Does it seem like everything is happening in the next couple of weeks? That's how I feel. This Saturday Lacie & I have a tea party to attend, then we are going to pick up the boys and head to a "super hero training camp" (a birthday party for two little boys).

I made some quick placecards for the tea party (hosted by my mother-in-law). For the background paper I took a picture of the plates they will be using...I just lightened them up a bit in GIMP so that it is easier to see the names. I added some Glitz Stickles on each placecard and finished it off with a Prima flower with a Liquid Pearls dot for the center. They are very simple, but I think they will work.

Happy Monday!

Peggy Loves Vintage - Elephant

(Click on the images to view them larger)

This card was done for the BBTB contest sponsored by Peggy Loves Vintage.
This is the original elephant image from Peggy Loves Vintage:



I'm not very much of a red person, so I changed it to make it a bit orange-y. I printed the image multiple times and pop dotted some sections of the image to give it a bit more depth. I added a few extra touches with some Distress Stickles and Distress Ink.

The card itself is made from a cut on the Storybook Cricut cartridge. I cut it once in white cardstock and once in black. Then I made the white cardstock look more vintage using the Tim Holtz Distress Inks. The polka dot ribbon is from Miss Elizabeth's (Dollar Tree!) and was originally white and I used the Distress Inks on there as well. I finished it off with a few extra touches with my ZIG pen.



(There are two posts today for this contest...so scroll down...)

BBTB: Peggy Loves Vintage - Baby

(Click on the images to view them larger)

This is the second card I did for the BBTB contest sponsored by Peggy Loves Vintage.
This is the original image from Peggy Loves Vintage:



I wasn't exactly inspired by the blues and pinks...so I added a little GIMP magic and created this purple/peach-ish combination. I also wanted to alter the shape of the card a bit to give me room for the "twinkle, twinkle, little star...", so I did that in GIMP as well.



I used the Cricut to cut out the little pieces that I wrote on (Storybook cartridge). I printed the image multiple times and popped up some specific areas to give it some more dimension. I added some Distress Stickles and some Glitz Stickles...and of course some Distress Ink.

Thanks for looking!

Just "Patchy"

(You can click on each image to view it larger)

It's a good thing this Caardvarks challenge ends tonight, because I have been obsessed with making tree cards lately. Okay, I am pretty much obsessed with trees...or leaves...or nature - anything of the sort. But this challenge has made me go card making crazy!



I created my own set of stamps for this...the sign, the bird, the tree, the clouds...I wanted to do something quilt-y/patchwork-y - so I drew some up and made them into digital stamps and then printed them out onto my patterned paper. Then I paper pieced them together.



The papers are from Autumn Leaves - I think the pack is called Thrift Store...something like that. And of course I used some Tim Holtz Distress Inks to distress it a bit. The cardstock (background and popped frame) is from DCWV. I attached some ribbon I got in the Target Dollar Spot awhile back and a cute little clothespin I bought at Michaels - I actually used the clothespins to attach "reserved" cards for a group of seats at our wedding...almost 7 years ago now.



I've got a couple more cards finished and I hope to post them in a couple of days...so check back!

Happy Day

(Click on the image to view it larger)

I did this card for a "Rainbow" challenge.

Here are the details on the supplies I used for this card:
Stamps: See D's
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink
Papers & Embellishments: Shabby Princess (Happy Go Lucky Kit), notebook graph paper, snow writer, Inkssentials white pen, Stickles

Javan's Picture

Here's a picture of Javan that I jazzed up using digital scrapbooking paper and extra elements.



All done with GIMP using freebies from Shabby Princess, Free Digital Scrapbooking, Pixie Perfect Designs, and more.

About digital freebies...

I have already shared some of my favorite (free) digital scrapbooking sites, such as:

Shabby Princess
House of 3
Free Digital Scrapbooking

Here's another great one to add to the list:
Raspberry Road Designs

They offer a lot of "Quick Pages" (QP), which I personally am not too interested in, but they also have some great free alphabet sets, paper packs, and element kits available to download.

And of course, I still recommend the awesome (and free!) GIMP to put it all together.

Funky Lacie

Here's a picture I did of Lacie (in GIMP, of course!) using all sorts of free things from various Shabby Princess kits (and a photo I took of her recently):


(Click on the picture to see it bigger)

Digital Magic...

(As always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

The original (this is my cousin's adorable daughter):


Dressed up with digital:


And another version done to match her room decor:


Everything here is either done with free downloads from various sites (like Free Digital Scrapbooking and Shabby Princess) or created by me (using digital photographs and GIMP).

LOVING Digital!!!

I have been having fun using some cool digital tools. I am in the process of designing some generic postcards that can be used for multiple occasions. Here's what I have so far...let me know which is/are your favorite! (Note: You can click on each image to see it larger.)

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


Edited to add some more...

#6


#7


#8


Everything on these was done with free goodies from House of 3, Free Digital Scrapbooking, and Shabby Princess (and maybe a few free font sites). Oh, and let's not forget the amazing GIMP!

Gettin' GIMP-y with it...

It seems like everything these days is moving toward digital. I wanted to play around a bit with my "faux-toshop" program (aka...GIMP). GIMP is a Photoshop-type program. It does everything I would ever want to do with a photo program (and more), but at a very affordable price - FREE.

I am in the process of designing some digital stamps to use in digital (or hybrid) scrapbooking/cardmaking. I decided to play around a bit with a picture I took of the kids to get the hang of it.

Here's the result:


The background is a digital patterned paper from ShabbyPrincess.com...from the "Happy Go Lucky" kit.
Think it is adorable??? So do I! (I love anything paisley!) And guess what...again - it's FREE.
Go here to download it for yourself. Click on the large image to download the entire kit at once (if you have a high speed internet connection) or click on the four tag images to download the kit in smaller parts (if you are using a dial-up internet connection).