Scrapbooking our Pets

I'm going to let my journaling do the talking with this blog post. Just click on the photo and it should enlarge enough for you to read.

Mistable flowers from Pink Paislee are perfect to work with and add your own color.

All supplies, except the alphabet, are from the December kit Uncertainty at Scrapbooking from the Inside Out.

It still saddens me when I see photos of Midge but I'm also finding that the sadness goes away a bit quicker now. I still long to see her walking around the condo but I also know she is in a better place and the past 15 years were such a precious gift to have her. This is when I'm so thankful for our approach to scrapbooking at SFTIO. To combine art and creating with the journaling process is extremely therapeutic for me. 

Any other pet lovers out there? What have you done to give your little furball dedication? 

hugs,

Melissa

Easy Greeting Tag for Beginners

I love coming to the ScrapStreet blog and seeing the wonderfully creative Holiday cards being showcased!  

I am a "newbie" when it comes to paper creations - it wasn't until a month or so ago I really started to dive in to the world of paper crafting ... so I feel like I have a lot to learn and a long way to go before I'll be able to create really unique and beautiful paper projects, but I wanted to create some sort of Holiday greeting to send to our family and friends this year.  This is what I came up with:

I purchased white tags from my local craft store and since I've been engulfed in the world of digi for so long, I felt very comfortable using software (Corel) to create a greeting to print out on the tags.  You could also stamp a greeting or saying on the tags ...

Once I had printed up a dozen or so tags, I inked each one with Tim Holtz Distress Ink with Peeled Paint (green), Vintage Photo (brown) and Worn Lipstick (pink).

I used Tim Holtz Grunge Snowflake stamps to stamp randomly along the edges and then used Tim Holtz Vintage Photo embossing powder.  

 

I had some brown envelopes tucked away, and used one of the larger Grunge Snowflake stamps on the corner and embossed it with Antiquities embossing powder.

 I found a piece of bright green snowflake ribbon that I wanted to use, but it was way too bright, so I distressed it with Vintage Photo distressing ink (I love that stuff!)  

These were easy to create and each one is unique ... and I hope other paper crafting "newbies" can use this idea to create greeting tags of their own!!  

Happy Hollydays!!

Hi everyone! I really wanted to dazzle all of you with a project I am working on for teacher's gifts, but as you all know, it's a busy time of year and I simply didn't have time to complete it before today's post. Instead, I am posting this holiday card.

I like the idea of juxtaposing images to look like they are coming off the page. It's like Frosty is popping up from the lower left corner onto the card to wish you Happy Hollydays!!

To make this card, I stamped the face from Peachy Keen stamps onto a piece of white cardstock, cut it out with a circle punch and colored his cheeks with a Tombow marker.. I cut a second circle slightly larger than the first. I used an Exacto knife for the hat and the holly was created with my Silhouette.  I positioned  everything on the card just the way I wanted it and proceeded to glue it onto the base. I cut off the part of the circle that was hanging off the page. Then I embellished Frosty with a piece of ribbon for a scarf and gave him some arms made of twine. The sign is made with a sentiment from Joy's Life. He's no fancy schmancy teacher's gift, but I still think he came out cute.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. I love this time of year, even though it's busy, busy, BUSY!

Last minute gift tags

I never buy gift tags. I always think to myself that I am going to make them, and sometimes I do, but last year I ended up writing the to and from on the gifts in sharpie marker. No lie!

So, this year I whipped up these babies. I actually had most of the stuff all ready because I had made extra embellishments for the advent calendar and gift wrap projects that I did earlier this month. I cut the tags on my cricut. Easy peasy! I just told it to cut a bunch of them, and then walked away to do other stuff. (You will notice that some of these tags are different sizes; I trimmed some of them to make them fit in the pockets of my advent calendar, then decided not to use them in the advent calendar.) After they were cut, I matted them on patterned paper. Although thinking back, it probably would have been even easier to have the cricut cut the shadow for me, but I'm still kind of a cricut novice, so I didn't think of that until I was almost done.

I also had stamped a bunch of these adorable critters to use with the gift wrap project. When I am stamping and coloring, I often find it easy to do multiples. They had been colored in and stickled already, I just had to cut them out. Some of the tags I stamped onto directly - that saves time with the cutting out!

And for the tags that I didn't have stamped images for? I used some leftover die cuts and stickers! voila! I didn't bother with the 'to' and 'from' because I don't have a stamp for that, and I didn't feel like adding all those tiny alphas, easier to just write it in when Im ready.

I tied the ribbon on while I was watching tv one night because I don't plan on having a place to tie the tags onto the gifts.

Before and After Gift Bag

If you are like me, you don't like to throw away those cute shopping bags that stores give you this time of year. The problem is, I don't want the store's GIANT logo across the bag if I am going to give it to someone else (especially if the gift inside isn't from that store). So, I give you before and after.

First, I used some Distress Inks to "grunge" up the bag a little big. The white was just a little too stark for the images I was going to be adding. I then covered the logo with hunter green cardstock that I punched with a border punch on all 4 sides (this is an adorable Fiskars border punch with a row of evergreens. It's from last year's Limited Winter Edition.). I used some white dabber paint to make snow on the trees. Lastly, I used Versamark ink to stamp on some shadow-effect snowflakes.

I cut out some images from an old Die Cuts with A View Christmas pack. I cut out each image twice and trimmed one. With some pop-dots underneath, I raised the smaller image and affixed it to the larger one to give it a shadow-box effect. I dabbed on some white paint around all of the edge and embellished with Stickles. Everything looks better with some Stickles, don't you think?

 

Now, here's wishing I can find a great gift to put inside! 

{holiday gift tags...}

The holidays are right here, and the pressure is high to get everything done. Are you making handmade gifts this year? I wish I could, but I always run short of time (I have two little girls you know)! But I do try to make something handmade for everyone, maybe a card or a gift tag. And just when I sit down to create something, due to the stress of this season, I always seem to lack ideas. Thats why I love the blogs I follow, I can always find inspiration there.
Today for your inspiration I have this hybrid gift tag card to share...

To make this card, in Photoshop, I layered the sentiment onto the ornament and added a twine bow. I then printed this along with the light green background onto a white cardstock. Trimmed the card to size, and added a satin bow. And called that done.

Here is hoping that all of you get your projects done quickly and easily this season!

Supplies used:

Software: Adobe Photoshop CS5

Sentiment, Ornament: Creativity by Crystal

Twine bow: Splendid Fiins

Cardstock: Wassau

Ribbon: American Crafts

Christmas Journal~

Everyone is talking about the December Daily with Ali Edwards { fabulous}~well this is my version.   It is a composition notebook covered with sticky back canvas.  I used the November add on kit by The Paper Bakery to make mine.  I have needed a place to keep track of sizes of feet , little peeps and what I have bought in previous years~such as doll cloths, build~a~bear outfits and such.  I think this will work perfect!!!

The kit came with all of these cool embellishments. So it was easy to put a pocket on the inside for receipts just in case I have to do a return.

Hope you enjoyed this journal and I will see ya soon!!!! by: C. Mercer