Saturday, March 17, 2012

Scrap Fit Challange #64

I am really need to get some scrap-booking done.  I am organized, I have all of my photos printed and I have no idea where to start.  I have 30 pages to get done...


I have been following the Scrap Fit blog for quite sometime, and this is the first time I have participated in a challange.  I looked at the challenge and knew I had the perfect photo.

I also did something I never do...I stitched on my page with my sewing machine and I loved the results.
The rick rack is sewn on the page.
The dark blue circles are made with my 1/2 inch circle punch and I cut the circles in half. I stitched around the square using a zig zag stitch. 
The title Cousins is a sticker letters.
the #1-#5 are stickers.
the names are put on with a mini stamp set I have.

Here is a close up of that stitching.  

I emblishment with paper flowers with button centers.  I didn't purchase anything to make this page...

Here are details about the Challenge that ends soon.  But they have a challenge posted frequently so you always have an opportunity to join in the fun.


The Paper Variety/ScrapFIT Double Challenge

We have a special papercrafts challengefor you today! The Paper Variety has teamed up with ScrapFIT to offer you 2 challenges in one!
The Paper Variety has created a sketch challenge and ScrapFIT has offered up a jounaling challenge. Put them together and you will get an awesome layout and a chance to WIN a prize from both places!

The Paper Variety's Sketch Challenge:


and ScrapFIT's Workout #64 journaling challenge-
Its Easy as 1, 2, 3...
The 'Its Easy as 1, 2, 3..' Workout is here and all you have to do is list out numerically your journaling on your layout! This could be a list of your Top 10 favorite moments from last year, a list of goals for the new year or the countless reason you love ScrapFIT (Just kidding!). Show us your numbered list!
Be sure to incorporate this journaling workout with the TPV sketch above so you can enter your layout at both places!
The randomly chosen challenge winner at TPV will receive Bo Bunny's Alora collection kit:


Also!
TPV will award a random commenter this fun Echo Park "A Boy's Life" collection kit!

For your chance to win A Boy's Life, just comment on both todays ScrapFIT Workout #64 post here and todays TPV challenge post here. You needn't enter our dual challenge to win this prize. This is simply a giveaway just for leaving a comment at each blog! :)


Thursday, March 15, 2012

Sock Monkey Baby Blanket



I hope you don't mind me taking a step away from the vampire crafts to share with you the blanket I made for my upcoming arrival of my baby boy.  I am not really into the cutesy nursery patterns and blankets that are out there.  The only thing I could think of that would be my style would be Sock monkeys, or some geometric patterns.  I took lots of time to consider.  I purchased this sock monkey fleece material at Hobby Lobby.  I looked into different finishes and decided it might be fun to crochet the edges.  I did lots of research and I came up with a way to do something that would work for me.  You could really go crazy and vamp or goth this project out.  So take my idea an feel free to vamp it.  If you can find some damask black and white, or red and black material that would be so awesome.  At halloween it would be fun to see what you could find.

Materials Needed.
Fleece Material of you choice and size of your choice.
Ruler.
sharpie
Scissors, or I used my Cropadile.
Yarn of your choice....I used a fluffy soft yarn.  I wouldn't go with the cheap stuff...becuase some of the colors run and it would ruin your fleece.

1.  Cut The fabric to the size of your choice.  You have the option to double the fabric or to just go with the fleece without a backing.  I didn't back my fleece because I live in Texas and it gets hot...so I made the choice to just use the fleece by itself.

2.  I then marked every one inch with a sharpie marker all around the blanket.  I then used my crop-a-dile to punch the holes out.  It worked perfectly.  I purchased a perforation blade for my rotary cutter and it DIDN'T WORK, I was so frustrated and returned it.  I made 2 blankets.  One for the baby bed and a smaller blanket for the car seat.

3.  I then began to crochet.  I began right in the middle on the side of the blanket.  I did a triple stitch in each hole, 3 times, Chained 2 and then went to the next hole.  On the corners I added 3 triple stitches, chained 2, and did 3 more triple stitches to make my corners.  Think of it as putting a row on a granny square.  Here is a great tutorial if you need an idea.  You can go around the blanket as much as you want.  I went around one time for the large blanket and 2 times for my car seat blanket.  I only use 2 things (whatever they are called) of yarn.

This was super, super easy.   It took me just a few hours.  It was inexpensive costing under $20 and it looks and feels so nice.  I am addicted.

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Monday, March 12, 2012

Craft Cabinet COMPLETE

Last month I was telling you about my New Craft Cabinet. I am so happy to report that today is the first day of spring break and I have spent the entire day organizing the cabinet and IT IS FINISHED!

I am a bit OCD, and so I labeled all of the boxes and storage spaces. This will help me remember where things go.  I only purchased one thing for this cabinet everything else I had on hand.   I have also found some interesting ways to organize and keep up with my scrapbooking. I wanted to keep as much as I could inside the cabinet...but I have a few shoe box crafts on top of my cabinet. In that closet I was telling you about I have 2 Rubbermaid boxes. One full of fabric and sewing supplies. And one full of things I want to "up-cycle" or craft one day. Other than that I have completely organized my CRAFT life. The rest of my life well...I don't have it all together.


On the top of the cabinet you will find a shoe box for glue, tapes, and any kind of adhesive.  Then a box of photos that need to be scraped.  A box of ribbon, Scrapbooking Acessories like rub-ons, stickers and anything else to embellish my pages.  And the very last box your will find Letters.  All kinds and all sorts of letters.  The red basket is full of bags, like sandwich bags....I never toss those...I rewash them and use them for my crafts...I have had some for maybe 10 years.  ..



On the second shelf you will find all of my jewelry and beading supplies to the left, and on the right other small knick nacks that I want to up-cycle into other crafts...(like some wine corks, coffee cans, and you get the idea)
On the third shelf you will find some plastic drawers labeled and sorted by color.  (note I have red and black or vampire paper in one drawer, can you spot it!)  I have had these drawers for 7 years.  They come in 3 drawers...and I have LOVED THEM.  They are about $9.00-$15 per set.  They are the off brand rubbermaid.  The little magazine rack has some matching paper sets, and then there is two 12x12 folders.  One has scrabooking stickers and emblishements that would not fit in the shoe box, and the other has letters that would not fit in the shoe box.
That empty space is where my sewing machine goes.  But it is actually, in use. I am making a baby quilt for the new baby.  The cubby above holds my sewing machine accessories.

On The bottom shelf you will find My current scrapbooks, to the left...and 3 drawers.  One for each of my kids with paper for each.  I have a teen boy.  So some papers are just for him.  My other child is a girl so all of the pink sparkly stuff goes to her, and my other child is a baby boy...So for me..It is really easy to put paper away for each of my kids that I know can be used for each of their pages.  The other boxes are shoe box drawers.  The are labeled.  Stamps, Punches, Tools (scissors, cropadile, exacto knife, rulers you get the idea)  and the last drawer is for blank cards and envelopes and small paper that can be used to make cards.
The big block of shelveing paper is a huge drawer full of fabric, and a small tool box with all of my sewing accessories. (like my needle and thread, pins, etc)

Now on to the Organizing your scrap-booking supplies.  This is what I am doing....I have tons of 12x12 refill pages I have purchased in the past and they would not fit into my books. (don't you hate that) I don't trash anything so I held on to them.  I have always used them to hold some things together or other paper projects.  I found this extremely effective...So I decided to take it to the next level.   This was my purchase...I purchased $15 worth of 12x12 refill scrapbooking pages from the Dollar Tree.  Each package contained 10 sleeves, and I purchased 13 of them.  Everything that was on the shelf.  That gave me 130 sleeves and I used every single one of them.  Plus the ones I already had.  These are not good enouph for your scrapbook....they don't work on most scrapbooks but they are perfect for organizing...Also if they rip or tear no big deal...  I utilized both sides of the sleeve if I could.  I HAVE WAY TO MUCH PAPER.  Here are some photos of what everything looks like.....
 I pulled this sleeve out of my daughters layout drawer.  It has a scrapbooking paper sets on each side.  
 Here is one side.  It has 2 double sided pages and some matching rub ons.  
On the other side is 4 matching pages that would be perfect for any spring or girly layout.  
 This is a 2 sided design.....One side everything I need to put a page together.  
Flip it over and you have everything you need to make a page.  Now that I can find everything so much easier I can add whatever I need.  I was able to complete 3 pages in about an hour...That is with the kids asking me for ???? every 30 min.  I was impressed so I had to share.  
 In that magazine rack is the rest of the matching sets...I pulled this one out...It is like a road trip or mapish like paper set with 4 sets of paper..with stickers and more....and If I flip it over....I will find another matching set.

It took me awhile to organize all of this.  But I KNOW I will be able to put a page together really quick.  I was also so happy to find paper I forgot I had.  I wanted to get everything all organized today so the rest of this week I can take my printed photos and easily find everything I need to get caught up with my scrapbooking.  I need to make about 30 pages.  With 2 kids, going to college and being unorganized I have not be able to get any pages done this year I usually go to weekend crop retreats, or crop nights and SINCE I am antisocial I am able to knock out quite a few pages.  With a new baby on the way...I can't see doing that anytime soon.

Let me know what you think?  I hope you could understand the method to my madness.   Let me know if you had done something that might help me.  Right now my ribbon is wadded and stuffed in the shoe box.  I need a better solution for that.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

St.Patrick's Day Papercrafts

Guess I am in a Luck mood.  Here is yet another post with a clover.  I made a 3 leaf clover using 3 eyelets I had in my scrapbooking stash.  I just punched them as close as I could together and used a pen to add the stem.  I then trimmed the clover out of the white card stock and mounted it on a fun card.  I hope you enjoy.  I hope this gets your juices flowing on all of the different things you can make with eyelets.  

This is a cute leprechaun I made.
I punched the face out of cream cardstock with my 2inch punch...but you can use something to trace and cut a 2 inch circle.  I then used my 1/2 inch punch for the ears.  I added googly eyes and quilted the mouth nose and hat.  I then mounted everything to black cardstock and trimmed it all out free hand.  
Paper piecing is another way to add a fun emblishements to your scrapbooking or paper crafts. I made this one a year or 2 ago.  I used a  THIS coloring page of a leprechaun.  As you can imagine the possibly is  endless to what you can do for your cards or paper crafts.  I used a black sharpie to outline the jacket, pants and to add details to the leprechaun.  I usually save the design and re-size it to my needs.  Print several copies and just trace and trim each piece on the paper color choice that I want.  My personal scrapbook is full of paper pieces.  It allows me to be creative with my pages and keeps my costs low.  I think even if I became rich and could afford to purchase any embelishment I wanted I would still use paper-piecing for my scrapbook pages. I will try to post more here and there to show you the great possibility design.  I would to hear your story and see your designs.  


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Iris Paper Folding Four Leaf Clover

A wonderful way to make an inexpensive handmade card, is to use iris paper folding.  There is an awesome website you can visit for this pattern and may more.  You can always add your own spin to the craft.  This is one of these designs that go all 1980ish???

Here is the webiste.  http://www.circleofcrafters.com/irisfolding/irisfolding4leafclover.html

I printed out the design and traced it on a blank card.  I then printed a pattern just a half of inch bigger and made my own boarder.  I quilled some little establishments around the card...and adding some doodle designs, as well as some chalking around the edges.  I would love to see your designs.  I know this can go gothic with the right paper and pattern.  You can use a circut machine and make anything you want...I could kick myself for not taking photos of past projects.  I would love to see yours? Pin It

Quilled Four Leaf Clover


I love to quill.  I have quilled many times to make emblishments on my pages and cards that I couldn't find in the store.  It is the most inexpensive way to add an emblishement to any papercraft.   It looks like the technique is making a come back.  I was just playing around with some scraps and I wanted to share a how to make a Four Leaf Clover for any upcoming Scrapbooking, papercrafts or Card crafts you have.  Super easy...

Materials
Strips of green paper measuring 1/8 inch.  (you can cut your own or if you want to purchase quilling paper)
Elmers or school glue

***There are lots of inexpensive quilling tools and accessories but it is not necessary

1.  Cut 5 strips of paper I cut the paper to 2inches.
1.  Using your fingers or a quilling tool to turn the ends of the quilling paper.  I folded the strips in half and the turned in the ends....Then glued the ends together to make a heart.  On 1 strip just curl the end for your stem.
3.  Put them all together to make a four leaf clover and allow them to dry.  Regular school glue to attach your design to your card, scrapbook, or papercraft.

Note cut 1 inch strips and let kids make a big 4 leaf clover for a fun craft.

That is all...

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