Grandkids Picture Project

I pin from Pinterest...I know, not an unusual thing to do these days, but I decided I needed to actually do some of the projects I had been pinning!  A friend's birthday is coming up and I wanted something special for this lady cuz she's pretty special herself.  I found this pin here.  She has a 5 children and 7 grandchildren all of which are her pride and joy.  I thought it would be great to recreate this project for her.  My disclaimer as I start this post is that I have not used my Cricut to cut anything other than paper..so for my first foray into other mediums I decided to do vinyl.  Why not do it up right the first time!  I made a trip to JoAnn's Fabrics with my android phone app and the sales flyer's...and lucked on a sale on the Cricut items along with an additional amount off of the total purchase!  Yay for me!

 So I picked up a roll of black vinyl as well as clear lifting vinyl!  It is a must if you are doing words or sayings! It lifts your cut letters in the position you cut them so your alignment on your project should be perfect!  I also had not yet downloaded Cricut Craft Room to my laptop!!! Why oh why did I wait so long!  It was so easy to use and much easier I must admit than my other Cricut software.  Once I found a font that I liked and for which I had the cartridge I set about designing the words and the layout.


I'm not a person that likes to "fly by the seat of my pants" if you will when it comes to designing stuff!  I like to have the dimensions, and know what the sizes are of the things I am cutting...but since I was working with a different kind of project I did some practice runs with the font size and spacing using papers that I didn't like...you know the ones that come in those paper packs and you're really not sure why they chose that pattern!  Once I liked the size of the letters I cut the first word...Grandchildren.  I was on pins and needles when I got ready to lift the letters...the vinyl requires some working with it to get the letters to lift correctly from the mat...the handy dandy little Cricut tool set was a lifesaver.  There are also very detailed instructions in the vinyl package you purchase.  Once I got the word lifted smoothly I laid it out on the board.  I had previously painted the board using Martha Stewart pearl paint as my base (2-3 coats) and then putting on a brown paint and wiping off most of it...I wanted the distressed look for the wood.  I the laid down the word Grandchildren using the clear lifting vinyl/paper and then rubbed the letters down.  It is very similar to transferring any type of letters like rub-ons...you gently work the vinyl with the stick to smooth it out and get it to adhere to the wood, then you slowly peel back the lifting vinyl/paper and presto, it's all nice and neat.  I decided I wanted a different color vinyl for the second row of words so back to JoAnn's.  This time I got the variety pack!  Yes there is a variety pack of vinyl...it comes with about 7-9 different colors in smaller sheets. I used brown for the second set of letters and following the same process set them down on the board.

I had picked up eyelet screws and screwed two of them into the board along the bottom edge.  I wanted them in the board before I put layers of Mod Podge on the board to secure the vinyl. I then put on Mod Podge, about 3 layers.  I wanted to make sure the vinyl was not going anywhere and I wanted to protect the project as well.  Once the Mod Podge dried I put two hangers on the back of the board through which I tied the pretty brown floral print ribbon and tied in a bow at the top.  I then tied a piece of jute cord I had in my stash to the eyelet screws and started adding the other embellishments...the bling at the top next to the word Grandchildren on both ends, the flowers, the butterfly.  I had picked up small clothespins to put on the cord to hold the photos, that was my intent in following the original pin; but when in Michael's I found in the dollar bins these really cute little rectangular and heart shaped chalkboards attached to clothespins.  I used these instead and I think they add a nice touch to the project and make it more personalized.  Sometimes those chance finds at the craft store are the best finds!

I wrote each of my friends grandkid's names on the chalkboards, rectangles for the boys and hearts for the girls.  I used a gold fine tipped pen...I couldn't find a white one. For illustration purposes I just added pieces of scrapbook paper to represent where the kids pictures would hang.

We had dinner last night and I gave her the gift.  It was a big hit, and I am wonderfully pleased with the end result!

Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Wedding Collage

Hi there...it's been awhile since I've posted.  Holidays, moving right after the holidays, and then wedding helper!  My oldest son was married in March in San Diego, California.  We instantly gained a beautiful daughter-in-law and another handsome grandson!  The weather was beautiful, the venue was lovely, a local park in La Jolla that overlooked the ocean and the reception was on Coronado Naval Air Station in a reception room looking out at the beach and ocean.  Before the photographer left San Diego I talked her into leaving a few of the wedding photos on my laptop.

Prior to the wedding I had picked up this heart shaped collage frame at Michael's.  I figured I would do a gift for the newlyweds with some of the pics from the wedding. As you can see the frame is divided into four sections with fixed dividers. Since the wedding was at the ocean I wanted to commemorate that fact in the background.  So these are the supplies I started with, the collage frame, some beach scrapbook paper, jewels, mini envelopes, flowers, and other accents.  When I first picked up the frame I knew I would have to cut the paper to fit each section.  I had precut a blank paper pattern to play with the sizing of the sections.  When I finally got the patterns to fit nicely in each section I had to decide how to cut the paper.  I wanted the word beach to be somewhat visible on the frame.  The word beach is at the bottom of the page and obviously that wouldn't fit around the curved bottom of the heart frame.  I took the patterns from the top of the heart and used them on the bottom of the scrapbook paper.  The word BEACH was divided and even though the divider falls in the middle of the word, I still feel it looks very connected.  I then took the patterns for the bottom of the heart and cut those sections from the top of the paper with the waves on them. I'll be honest, I bought extra pieces of the paper because it took a couple of times of cutting the shapes to get them nicely fitted in each section.

Once I had the paper glued in to the frame I started playing with all of the accent pieces to see how I wanted to lay out the design.  One of the examples I saw for this frame was to put the couple's wedding vows in envelopes in the design.  I found these cute little scalloped edged envelopes in the Martha Stewart section of Michael's and decided to ink them up to reflect the colors of the wedding which were brown's and roses.  I used Tim Holtz Vintage Photo ink and inked the envelope and the card insert.  I printed their vows on the computer with a small font.  In order for it to fit and still be readable I had to use both sides of the card.  I had these beautiful pink scroll letters and added their initials to each envelope.  I added pearls and brown gemstone schwoopies above and below the envelopes, lovely brown flowers with jewels in the center, and a pair of doves in the lower right corner.

Latrel Smith took a beautiful picture of Kyle and Dana praying together and I wanted to highlight that picture. I put it up in the upper right corner of the heart and added a small brass cross over the picture and a set of doves from Jolee's and a pretty jeweled heart with schwoopies next to it.  In the bottom left of the frame was one of my favorite pics of the kids.  They are facing the camera with Kyle's arms draped around Dana.  It is a beautiful shot of them and they look so very happy.  I added some more of the pretty brown and rose colored jeweled flowers and more schwoopies to finish it off.  All in all I think it turned out beautifully.

The finished result is shown below.  The kids were very excited when they received it.  I sent it to them with a couple of other items in the box.  This was on top and the first thing they came to...they didn't finish going through the box, they called me right away!  I think it was a hit!

Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

Green Bay Packers

Last month I shared some baby shower cards I'd made and also made reference to the different ideas that could result from these patterns.  Today I'm sharing those cards.  Close friends of ours became grandparents for the 2nd time recently and were blessed with a baby girl.  While I myself have three boys and a stepdaughter, three grandsons and a granddaughter, I love making my projects in more girly colors!! I'm surrounded by too much testosterone in my house, so I welcome any chance to make things with girly colors.  However, in this instance I gave up that idea for some sports oriented colors even though it's a girl! 

Gene our friend and his daughter Jasmin, the new mommy, are huge Green Bay Packers fans! I mean huge fans! When I was making these cards last month it dawned on me that they would be cute done in the Green Bay colors, so I researched the colors for the Packers (really, I knew they were green and gold) as I wanted them to be as accurate as possible.  So here is the baby carriage in what I believe to be the correct color match.  I used a dark green Gemstones card stock I found at Stamper's Corner and a pretty gold that was a great match.  I used Colorbox Evergreen to stamp the sentiment on the yellow oval and added some green gems to make it girly and then used pop dots to lift it off the front of the card.  Inside I mounted a white card stock inside on the bottom half of the carriage.  I found some Jolee's football helmets and I picked up some small letter stickers in the style I figured most closely matched the Green Bay "G" on their sports stuff.  I put green pearls in the middle of the wheels to carry through my green and gold theme.  I think it turned out pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.

My friend Cathy over here at Scrappin Cat's Creative Endeavors had done a baby onesie a couple of years ago and had sent me her cut file.  I had not yet used it...what can I say...it takes me awhile to try out some projects!  I thought this would be a cool way to showcase the Green Bay colors a different way.  I used basic white for the onesie cut and the same Gemstones dark green for the front of the onesie and utilized the gold for the ruffles on the onesie.  I added the football helmet again with a small "G" below it and then added a football on the left side of the onesie.  I also added some small gemstones on the bottom of the onesie to simulate the snaps on real ones.  The sentiment stamped on the inside of the onesie was stamped in the same Colorbox Evergreen.

The shower was yesterday...I hope that Mom and Grandpa Gene enjoy the salute to their favorite pro sports team!

Until next time, Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

A Different Paperbag Book

I was surfing and saw this video at the Following the Paper Trail blog.  Laura does a wonderful tutorial on a different type of paper bag book.  I was surfing because I was looking for some gift ideas for Christmas and her how to video gave me the idea for the mini book I made for the best friend.  Becky and I have been best friends since high school.  When the idea came to me I wanted to be able to document our lives at different points over the last 35 years.  They would be events of significance and obviously ones of both of us for which I had pictures that I could use for the book.  This is the front of the book.  Becky loves sunflowers so I chose papers from a pad of K&Company papers I had.  Susan Winget is the designer and the paper pack was Spring Blossom.   One of the pages had a bike on it with a basket of flowers where the predominant flowers were sunflowers, just what Becky likes.  By the time I cut down the paper you mostly can just see the basket in the lower left corner and the flowers that cover the front and spine.  I used a matching green leaf patterned paper for the back that coordinated with the background behind the flowers.  I used some Tim Holtz distressed inks to ink up the edges of the pages and give them that shabby chic look.  In the spine I put a grommet to thread through the chain and charms that I added.

For the cover of the book I used the inside of a file folder.  If you have worked in an office you might be familiar with them.  They are red press board file folders with brown cardboard dividers in the middle, typically two or three dividers and are bound with really strong fabric across the spine to endure much handling and many papers in the file.  We were tossing some at work because they were starting to look pretty shabby on the outside, but the inside was still in relatively good shape.  Besides, I was going to cover it all with patterned papers.  I chose to cut the edges of the cardboard insert about 1/4 to 1/2 inch larger than the edges of the paper bags.  This provided about a 1/2 inch or so wide spine to affix the paper bags to.  The pages of the book are paper lunch bags.  I had a number of embellishments, but needed to pick up some others to make the book in its final form. For the front here I used a beautiful yellow butterfly, a metal plate in the upper right corner that says Best Friends and a remember when sticker in the lower left corner.  On the four corners of the book I used some Tim Holtz metal picture corners.  They worked perfectly and will help preserve the corners of the book and keep it from wearing out too quickly.  On the front I added a pretty glass looking button and on the back a grommet through which I tied some thin matching ribbon and affixed a small brass key to the end.  I then wrapped it around the end of the book and looped it around the button to be used as the book closure.

If you visit  Following the Paper Trail you will get the exact directions for how Laura puts together the paper lunch sacks.  I found it to be a very easy tutorial to follow and I made quick work of taping down the bottoms of the bags and attaching them together.  Then I had to choose coordinating papers from the paper pack.  I tried to coordinate colors as it was mostly floral papers that I was using. 

Once I got that done I started pulling pictures.  They start with our high school graduation pictures and proceed through our weddings, baby's, class reunions, trips back and forth, Christmas family photos, and pics of us with our families.  On the inside of the cover is a small envelope with a sentiment on vellum paper.  Our class song...Friends by Elton John was printed on vellum also and mounted to the left of our senior pictures.  The next pages mirror each other with a few pics of our weddings. I tried to mirror the photos, so one of her and her attendants, one of me and my attendants...you get the idea.  You also see ribbons sticking out of the bag pockets.  I put additional pictures on card stock and then put a grommet in the end of each card and looped an organza ribbon through it.

I also found some Jolee's embellishments for graduations, weddings, babies, etc. and added those to the pages as well.  I found that the paper bag bottoms that proved to be the short pages in between the regular sized pages were great for the embellishments or sentiments.  It allowed me to use more photos on the larger pages too.  I also used lots of different stickers and sentiments as well as stamping up and inking other sayings about friends and time and fixing those on the pages.  Additionally I stuck in some bling and more butterflies, because what flower garden is complete without butterflies.  The final two pages and the last pocket were mostly pics of Becky and me through the years.  Talk about a walk down memory lane...and boy the hairstyle and clothing changes in 35 years!  Good for lots of laughs for sure.  Great memories as well!  I hope she enjoyed receiving it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Until next time...Imagine, Create, Enjoy!   



Graduation Cards – Part 1

Lots of graduations this year for us!  Two in our family alone!  I was looking for a sample of a graduation cap card and found a few great tutorials on You Tube.  The one that I really liked was this one by Dawn Olchefske who is a Stampin Up! demonstrator.  I changed up her design by using the school colors for each of the graduates.  First I did one in a royal blue and orange, the colors for Consumnes Oaks High School here in Elk Grove.  After cutting the backing cardstock in the blue and marking the fold lines I added orange inserts to the graduation cap lid and the bottom of the card.  I added some orange cording with a black brad to anchor the tassel to the top of the hat and on the orange paper inside the cap I stamped Celebrate and You Rock!  I added some deep blue bling to match the cap color.  I chose to add Jolee’s Boutique graduation stickers to this one.  I cut them apart and modified them slightly so they would fit (mostly) under the fold down section of the cap.  I think this one turned out pretty cute!

Card Closed



Card Open



The next two cards I did are for my nieces.  Both are in the same family and both graduate on the same day, one in Northern CA and one in Southern CA!  Rob and Lisa will have fun getting to both of those functions!  Anyway, because the girls haven’t yet opened the cards, you will have to tune back in to see what their cards look like.  Each one is different.  I can’t share them yet as I know at least one of the girls checks out this blog and I don’t want to ruin the surprise!

Come back by soon!  In the meantime, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!