Boo to You!

Hi everyone!  I was browsing Pinterest a few days ago and came across an interesting fancy fold card tutorial that I just had to try! It is a pop-up panel card!  This fancy fold is really impressive, and surprisingly not so difficult to make!  I love it, because it allows you to use several coordinating images and still leaves room for some fun embellishing!

Since the mechanics of the inside of the card are pretty thick, I kept the outside super simple.  This was a sheet of patterned paper printed with a moonlit scene, so all it really needed was a sentiment sticker atop some sparkly washi tape, and some black enamel dots.  

The unfolding pop-up panel is a bit of a "boo!" when the card is opened!

More washi tape and orange enamel dots add a splash of color to the inside, and the skull brad is a fun detail that echoes the motif of one of the stamped images.  

I hope you're inspired to try a pop-up panel card too!

Oceans of Joy!

Hi friends!  As I'm writing this post, "sunny Florida" is dark and dreary as Hurricane Hermine makes her way across our beautiful state!  I'm hoping and praying that the damage will be minimal and that everyone stays safe!  

My friend and I went shopping the other day in the local stamp shop, and I couldn't resist this delicate sea creatures die.  I've been playing with water colors, distress inks, shimmer sprays,  and Lindy's magicals lately, and I thought this die would look lovely with a shimmery ocean background.  I accented the die's bubbles with some of our multi-sized Eyelet Outlet pearls in purple and blue.  I really love how it turned out!  

A sentiment framed by a couple of starfish brads goes just perfectly with this underwater scene.  I wish you could see how shimmery and sparkly this card is IRL!

Enjoy your Friday, and if you live in the states, have a wonderful, long Labor Day weekend!

Be Yourself!

Hi everyone!

Summer is coming to a close, school is starting, and cooler weather is just around the corner!  On FaceBook I've seen lots of back to school photos of children from pre-school through college, their mothers all marveling at the difference just one year makes!

Sometimes change is easy to embrace, and other times it takes a little encouragement!  The butterfly is a beautiful symbol of transformation that makes a great accompaniment to a variety of sentiments that fit all sorts of occasions!  

I love the surprise of cards that transform too!  This one has a sentiment panel that unfolds to reveal an accordion of butterflies and moths, including black and white butterfly brads (twelve to a package, six each of two designs), and 15 mm wide butterfly music washi tape.

The graph paper design on the inside makes writing straight a whole lot easier!  

Wishing you and your children courage and confidence to be your authentic selves each and every day!

Packing List!

Seems like every time I pack, whether it is for a short, overnight trip or a lengthy excursion, I pack the same ole thing and usually forget something!  The last trip we took (to visit my husband's family in Upper Michigan) I decided that it was time to make a list that I could re-use and update if necessary.

I used a journal card die to cut a bunch of cards from ivory and kraft card stock and a few designer paper prints, stamped them with a grid/ledger stamp, then decorated them with stamps and washi tapes.  Since when we fly I usually take along some gluten-free snacks and craft items in addition to clothing and toiletries, I added tabs to specify what belongs in my handbag, my carry-on, or my checked luggage.  

It made it so easy to organize for our trip, and helped me to not leave anything behind when we were ready to go back home!  I am so happy with the way this project turned it!  It's cute, small, and easy to update.  Here's just a small sampling of the pages. 

butterfly music washi tape

suitcase wide washi tape

Paris washi tape

black with gold dots foil washi tape

It's All Perspective!

Hello again!  Deb here with a blindingly bright, happy card. Sometimes all that's needed is a new perspective, and some cheerful colors and fun embellishments are just the fix!   

This colorful greeting features hand-cut banners, some Tim Holtz stamps, Eyelet Outlet's women's glasses brads and a pretty flat-back resin flower to match the floral patterned paper print. Hopefully it will bring a smile to brighten the face and outlook of the one who receives it!  

Easy Peasy Corner Critter Bookmarks

Hi everyone!  I'm here today with a super quick craft that you can do with or for your kids! With the start of school approaching,  I thought they might enjoy having a fun bookmark or two to get them excited about reading!  (Even though my homeschooling days are long over, I guess I'm still a homeschool mom at heart!) 

These are really quick and easy to make (especially if you use thin origami paper rather than heavier designer paper) and they're as cute as can be.  You can come up with all sorts of ideas for critters, and make them as simple or as ornate as you like!  They would even be a fun make-and-take party favor.  

First up is a quirky bat with big wings, little ears, and fangs.  His eyes are the smaller sized eye brads that come 12 to a pack in two sizes.  I attached them before making the final folds, so the ends are enclosed and won't get in the way as the bookmark moves on and off the page.  I kept my design super simple, but if you were making this for an older child you could bling it up with some sticky-backed pearl strips to accent the folds of the wings.

Next up is a frog.  A couple of circle dies or punches really make the larger sized eye brads stand out on the printed paper.  Again, the ends of the brads are enclosed to keep the inside smooth and to hopefully also discourage tiny fingers from fiddling with them!

You can find the video tutorial for folding the origami shape here and more ideas for cute critters here.   Have fun, and have a great school year!

Smile!

I love playing with watercolors, and particularly love the look of bright, clean colors blended together!  It just makes me happy! That look and feeling is what inspired today's project.  

I used my zig markers, a stamping block, a water spray mister and some watercolor paper to achieve the look, then added a die-cut sentiment (MFT), a fussy-cut stamped image (Recollections) and lots of enamel dots in matching colors ( orange, pink, and yellow) with a pop of black. Makes me think of seeing spots after the camera FLASH!

Hope you have a great week!

A Shell in Your Pocket!

Hello friends!  I hope you're having a great week!  Here in the U.S. we had a long three-day weekend to commemorate the 4th of July, and in Florida the Summer heat was ON!  We celebrated with friends, taking a day trip down to St. Augustine which included a boat tour from the city marina to the St. Augustine Lighthouse on Anastasia Island.  It was beautiful!

That trip inspired a simple Summer card with some colorful shell ribbon and a trio of shell brads that go perfectly with a beachy sentiment and some fun octopus and mermaid designer paper.  I'm playing along with the Retro Rubber Challenge #42 to use brads and a stamp that's at least a year old (Melanie Muenchinger's Gifts from the Sea, released April 2010 from Gina K Designs).

In my last Eyelet Outlet post, I shared a two-page layout from our trip to Italy using EZ Laser designs and Eyelet Outlet products. Today, in addition to my card, I'm sharing the remaining three pages documenting our trip.

I typically use coordinating prints of designer scrapbook papers in my scrapbooking, but with over 1000 pictures from this trip, I wanted to use every available space for photographs, which meant narrowing it down to about 40!

Since the music was the inspiration for the trip, I used strips of pearls to emphasize the notes on the Music Notes layout.  I love how elegant it looks.

These two layouts are Template #13 and Mosaic 6.  I added a Selfie brad, and an iPhone brad to accent a couple of the photos of my son and me with our chorale friends.

 
There was one really short but wide photo from the Colosseum...a Colosseum brad there helps identify the subject in the scene since it is not the traditional facade shot taken from the outside.

One of the photos from St. Peter's Square had a cool reflection of Matthew's face on Susan's computer screen, so I added a vintage hand brad to point that out just for fun.  

I love these layouts so much!  I hope you've enjoyed them too! The photos are a mixture of scenes from Venice, Lucca, Siena, Florence, and Rome, and they bring back such wonderful memories of a trip that I'll cherish for a lifetime!

Eyelet Outlet and EZ Lazer Designs

Hi everyone!  It's Deb, here with a scrapbook layout combining Eyelet Outlet embellishments with EZ Laser Designs.  

I have over 1000 photos from our trip to Italy!  I was thrilled to find that EZLaser had some laser-cut layouts that would be perfect for showcasing some of my favorites.  This two-page spread is the beginning of a five page span that contains about 40 photos.  The first two photos, on the left hand side in a page design titled Rome, are photos of our chorale in St. Peter's Basilica.  The setting was very elegant and ornate, so I chose to keep my layout rather simple and embellish only with a few strands of pearls placed in the lower left corner.

The space behind the laser-cut design of the Colosseum is backed with some parchment-like scrapbook paper.  One of my souvenirs from the trip is a lovely dip calligraphy pen, so once I've gotten some practice with it I plan to go back and document, in a pale monochromatic ink, the details of our trip.  

Unfortunately, we did not get to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but I still wanted to use the Italy title and this iconic landmark in my layout.  The photos are from Venice's St. Mark's Square and our gondola ride.  More pearls frame the upper right corner, where there's more room to continue documenting our itinerary, and I'll be sure to mention how disappointed we were to be so close to Pisa (we performed in Lucca) and still not get to see it.  

The Italy title was the perfect spot to include the colors of the Italian flag.  The vertical lettering and the contrast of the colors really accentuate the leaning of the tiny Pisa brad. 

I love how fast and easy the laser-cut designs made putting these two pages together!  I'll be back to show you the remainder in another post! 

Travel Time!

School's out and Summer is here (it'll be official in less than two weeks)!  For a lots of us, that means packing up the family and taking a trip or two!

For this month's Challenge Chicks' challenge, I'm inviting you to make a project that's travel-related.  I'm working on my Midori Traveler's Notebooks.  I have three going at the moment!  One is for our big Italy trip, and it's got photos, travel brochures, and lots of journaling in it.  The cover is classic, elegant black leather, and I altered the inserts with black and gold designer papers and washi tape.  That one I'll be working on for a while, and I'll be sharing more about it soon.

The inserts are the beauty of the TN set-up, which has elastic bands instead of rings.  You can carry one insert, or add several using special bands, customizing your planner/journal to work just for you.

photo courtesy of The Paper Seahorse

Yesterday I took a trip to Tampa to The Paper Seahorse for a Traveler's Notebook class and a Midori TN Meet-Up.  It was so fun!  I met some incredibly creative, talented journalers.  It felt so great to be with others who are as travelers-notebook-obsessed as I am now, and to listen intently as they spoke of their journaling experiences and recommendations.  The layout about that trip is in my camel-colored leather, standard-sized every-day journal, which contains a page-a-day insert of sketches/watercoloring, photos, stamping, and highlights of my days.

All of the girls at the meet-up signed a postcard, and Tona gave us some stickers and a little cat clip that I wanted to include in my layout.  I also had more pictures from my trip than would fit on my page-a-day format (some refreshing Tito's berry lemonade and a delicious lobster and avocado lunch across the street at Cask Social Kitchen, Paper Seahorse's Traveler's Notebook "heaven" plus our group photo), so I had to find a way to fit all of that in.  I scored the postcard in thirds, then cut a tag the same width as a cover, placing one photo on top, and a coupon and ticket sticker on the back.  When folded, the postcard slides into a band that secures it to the page with the tag hanging freely.  More photos go on the inside of the flip-out title.

My third journal is a smaller Passport-sized journal which currently holds an analog "month-at-a-glance" calendar and some bullet journaling for to-do's, etc.  Most of my schedule goes into my iPhone but there are things that are simpler to keep track of on paper,  and I'm always keeping lists about something!  The big list that I'm working on right now is a packing list, bullet-journal style, that will work for multiple trips.  I'll just washi-tape it to the travel journal in use at the moment so that it's moveable when that journal fills up.  My friend, Hope, and I are headed to Louisiana in a few weeks, and I hope to have my list complete by then for a test-run.

If you are looking for a planning system that is flexible and customizable to fit your needs, that you can simplify to make into something lightweight that will also serve as a take-everywhere-everyday or when-you-travel journal, then I recommend you check out Traveler's Notebooks.