Father’s Day Gift

I know, I know…Father’s Day was last month; however, we celebrated a little late this year so we could gift this particular item to my husband Rich while all the kids were here in town this past weekend.

Back in May my co-worker Jayne gifted me for my birthday this lovely bargain bag package we had seen at one of the local stamp stores.  They were having a sidewalk sale and we had gone over to check it out one Saturday morning.  I must admit here that I passed over this particular item because of the way it was packaged.  I also didn’t see the Dad board book in the packages I looked at.  The papers are all by BoBunny from their Cambridge Collection.  There were also some dimensional as well as conventional stickers in the same line.  The line reminds me of King Arthur and the knights.  While looking at the paper my mind immediately went to children dressing up as knights, etc., so I passed up picking the package up.  I wasn’t thinking outside the box on this particular day!  Well, when at work the next week I saw the packet Jayne had picked up and the Dad board book in it, I was bummed I had not spent more time searching through the packets at the store.  I could immediately see that I wanted to make a gift for my hubby that would be from the kids for Father’s Day.  Jayne had bought extra kits for her stash and graciously gifted me one for my birthday.  I was off and running.

 

With four children I wanted to make a book that would reflect the kids and their relationships with their Dad.  I added a page or two in plain double-sided card stock in between the cardboard letters and came up with enough pages for each kid to have a page of their own.  I also went back in my picture stash and pulled pictures of each kid as an infant or toddler.  I then paired those pictures with a current picture of each child.  Additionally, I added some group pics throughout the years as well as some individual shots of each kid with their Dad.

Finally, I asked each of the kids to come up with 2 or 3 things they loved about their Dad.  I then took 3 of each of their statements, printed them on a linen colored paper and inked up the edges to give it an antiqued look.  Those statements filled one of the pages. 

He couldn’t finish reading it when we gave it to him…I think I saw a tear glinting in his eye!  I think it was a hit.

Until next time!

Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Motorcycle Bag

Recently my neice gifted me with a book bag she had made with fabric scraps she inherited when my Mom, her Grandma passed away.  I was so impressed with the bag I asked her to make one for my co-worker Jayne for her birthday.  Jayne and her hubby Jim ride motorcycles, Harley Davidson motorcycles to be exact, so do my neice Teri and her husband Dan.  I knew she would be able to make what I was looking for because she had the practical experience and knowledge of Harley Davidson's and would be able to get the dimensions for the bag down.  Jayne loves bling.  She is the Queen of Bling (love ya, Jayne!) and she is the first to admit it. I wanted something that Jayne could put in the buckets on the bike, so it had to be functional as well as cute.  I think Teri exactly captured what I wanted in this bag.

It has a quilted solid bottom in a grey-black color and patterned sides with pink pockets on the outside.  The patterned fabric is Betty Boop on her motorcycle.  She coordinated the colors on the outside and added bling to the pockets and the outsides of the bag.  This pocket is a double pocket, one next to the outside of the bag and under the striped flap is another pocket.  Teri also added a coordinating purple pink fabric around the top of the bag. It has a zippered top and shoulder handles.  The shoulder handles go down the sides of the bag next to the pockets on each side.

Inside fabric

Inside pockets







The inside of the bag is a different patterned fabric, again Betty Boop on her motorcyle but it is in black and white with pink outlined hearts.  Teri used the striped fabric used on the outside pocket to make a series of pockets around the inside bottom of the bag.  All in all I think it turned out fabulous and Jayne seems to like it which is the important part.    

Thanks for stopping by today.  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Graduation Cards – Part 2

So after I completed the previous post I whipped up this little graduation cap in my neice Natalie's school colors.  Here is the one I did for her. 

This is what it looks like when closed, I used embroidery thread for the tassel and attached it with a black brad.  I had these graduation stickers so I cut down the strip with the caps and diplomas to fit on the bottom which you can see when you first take the card out of the envelope.  Once you open up the hat you see the following:

I folded it back so you could see the full length of the card.  On the inside of cap I stamped You Rock! and Celebrate.  On the bottom half of the card I added Graduate and Congratulations.  The stickers on the bottom half of the card have pop dots behind them to add dimension.  These graduation caps were actually very easy and quick to do up.

When I started making graduation cards this weekend I had the cap idea in my head for the cards, and found the great idea/tutorial noted in my previous post.  I had also been kicking around how I could make a card that was shaped like a graduation gown.  I had some Jolee’s Stickers graduation embellishments that I could have just thrown together with plain card stock and would have produced a nice little card, but I wanted something more.  I mulled it around for a while and kept looking at the embellishments and decided to do some free-hand drawing.  Now mind you, I have never considered myself to be an artist.  In fact that would be the least likely word I would use to describe myself, but artistic I became.  I freehand drew the likeness of the graduation gown from the Jolee’s package onto card stock.  


 I used that as my pattern and traced it on to the light blue cardstock.  Since my niece will graduate from UCLA I wanted to use their school colors and I also wanted the gown to have that sheen associated with finer materials.  I chose a solid matte finish Bazzil light blue card stock and cut the card out, but I wanted to add dimension to the front of the card so it would look like the folds on an actual gown.  I traced the front of the gown onto copy paper, cut it out, and traced it onto Bazzil’s line of shiny papers.  After cutting it out I proceeded to cut it apart, into the individual pieces for the front of the gown.  I also wanted to add in the UCLA yellow on the gown somewhere, so I cut a V shaped insert to go around the neckline and then layered the shiny blue bodice part over it.  To achieve the dimension for the flow of the gown on the front I set the outside folds directly onto the solid blue card stock and then the next two folds on each side I used pop dots to bring them up off the card stock background.  For the middle fold I used fatter pop dots to make it stand up just a bit higher than the sides. 

When you open up the gown I have mirrored the yellow from the collar for the inside of the card. 

Then to add a nice finish I used my Cricut machine to cut the UCLA letters in yellow and ran through my Xyron to apply adhesive and put on the bottom of the front of the gown.  I think my niece will enjoy it! 



Thanks for coming by…hope to see you again soon!  If you’d like to let me know what you think of my creation, feel free to leave a comment!  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!

Cards – Father’s Day and Birthday

Yesterday I spent some time making more cards…Father’s Day is fast approaching and more guy birthdays!  I always seem to struggle with guy birthdays.  Anyway, today I have CASE’d my good friend Tina’s Father's Day offering.  For Father's Day I did one of each of the shirt and fishing vest offerings.  I changed them up a little by using solid colored paper for the guy’s shirt and a patterned tie and handkerchief for the pocket.  These papers are from the Tradewinds paper pads from DCWV.  For the fisherman’s vest I used Kraft paper and inked up the edges with Vintage Photo ink from Tim Holtz.  I used a circle punch for the sleeve holes and the same for the collar indent on the front of the vest.  I added some twine in the pocket with a swivel attached to the end.  In the other pocket I put a small fish hook attached to some thread hanging off the pocket.  Thanks to my hubby for letting me raid his tackle box!

Father's Day

After finishing these cards I decided to make some for the guy birthday’s coming up.  I created the shirt card once again with papers from the Tradewinds paper pads and added a birthday sentiment inside.  When I was working on the earlier fishing vest it reminded me of a card sentiment stamp I had that goes perfect with the fishing vest idea…so a couple of more vests later I have cards with happy birthday stamped on the outside and on the inside the sentiment  “It’s your day…catch all the fun you can,” great play on words for the fishing concept!  Again, I added swivels and small fish hooks to the pockets to add more authenticity to the cards.  

Shirt Birthday Card



Fishing Vest Birthday Card



As I was finishing these up…I realized you could make the fishing vest for a gal also, I know some gals who also enjoy fishing…hmmm…another project for the next time!

Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Explosion Boxes

Awhile ago, my friend Tina taught a few of us how to make Explosion Boxes.  You’ve seen them, an ornament sized box that once you remove the lid, its sides fall open and you have different pages to put your pictures on.  My first attempt actually turned out pretty good.  I made a box to memorialize one of our Disneyland Trips when the kids were smaller.  

Side of box



Box exploded!

So my niece Teri, wanted explosion boxes made to hold her two children’s annual school pictures for their entire school careers (they are college and post-college now).  I set to work.  Since the box was going to cover all ages I needed the papers to be generic and not age specific and at first glance to show the difference between boy and girl.  For Johanna’s box I chose papers that had purple, pink, olive green and pale yellow.  I paired that with patterned papers from Cloud9Design the Brittany's Castle collection.  

Outside of box.



Inside with heart labels!



Since my niece was the one who was going to be putting the pictures in the box and I didn’t know in which order she would put them, I wanted a way for Teri to be able to label each picture for the school year during which it was taken.  Teri is not a scrapper…she is a seamstress.  I wanted this to be easy for her, so I came up with the idea to print on matching cardstock the years of school, K through College, and punch them out in the shape of small hearts.  In this way Teri could order the photos however she wanted in the box and just match the appropriate year and heart.  To personalize them even more, I decided to make the top bear each of the kid’s names.  If there was any question about whose box it was, it would be easily discernable.  Well the finished product doesn’t have their names, but it bears their initials and while they both have the same initials, I think I’ve made them different enough for anyone to be able to tell which box is Johanna’s and which is Jameson’s. 

Johanna's lid.

I used the Cricut Tie the Knot cartridge for the letters.  They have beautiful swirls attached to the bottom of each initial.

Jameson's box.



For Jameson's box I was struggling with knowing which papers to use.  It's hard sometimes to find papers that can be used for guy projects that have some personality.  While attending my recent kraft class, I found this paper pack that my friend Jayne suggested might work.  I chose papers from Tim Holtz’s Retro Grunge pad in green patterns for the insides, blocks and tabs, and added a dark blue, a lighter green, and a brown shade for the layers of the box.  For the top of his box I chose a star and I used his first, middle, and last initial in a simple font.  I made the years of school on smaller stars, again so Teri can mount them on the appropriate picture.  I loved this paper pad because it had some pages that had pre-sized squares in 6 x 6 and 2 x 2 inches and this allowed me to use some of the smaller pieces for tags to insert into the pockets.  Here is a look at the inside.  

Exploded box with stars!



I have sent off both boxes to my neice.  She received Johanna's a few weeks ago and loved it.  This one she should be receiving in a day or two.  I'm hoping she likes it just as much!  It's been fun.  I just might have to make a few more!

Thanks for stopping by.  Imagine, create, enjoy!

More Birthday Cards

May is another one of those months for my family...lots of birthdays along with a number of friend's birthday's, Mother's Day, graduations.  So...this weekend has been about birthday card making and attending birthday parties.  I needed a couple of girl birthday cards and some guy birthday cards.  Here is what I came up with for the gals.

This one uses paper from the Far East paper pad by DCWV.  I inked around the edges of the card and then  mounted this smaller square on the card stock after stamping the sentiment...I added a butterfly with some bling on the front. Inside I cut a smaller piece of the butterfly paper from the Far East pad and the took another piece from the pad and cut the two rosettes with my Tim Holtz rosette die.  Love that die!

Here is the next one.  I used some paper from a 4x6 pad of the K&Company Susan Winget's Spring Blossom specialty pad.  I added birthday wishes on the outside, some bling to the printed paper flowers,

and then a paper flower of maroon and yellow, a die cut butterfly below the stamped sentiment, with maroon ribbon tied around the spine of the card.  Inside is a birthday wish, a schwoopie on the bottom and another one of those fun rosettes.  I added a pop up butterfly accent along with a small maroon ribbon there to complement the outside ribbon.  Since the die cuts two rosettes, I put the larger one on the outside of the envelope to spiff it up!

Now on to the guy cards.  I used Kraft stock for two of the three cards and then some ivory card stock that I inked up around the edges to give a kinda grunge look if you will.  The first one I also used my Cricut for the sentiments on the outside.  It was fun mixing and matching from my Cricut cartridge.

These next two are similar, I liked the idea for the first one and decided to duplicate it a little on the next one.  I used paper from the new Tradewinds stack by DCWV.  It has papers that will go well for both guy and girl cards.  Can't wait to make some more.

The card on the left used ivory  card stock the one on the right Kraft paper.  I used the Cuttlebug slider die cuts to make the little sentiment tags to put on the ribbon.  Used brown ribbon, and then attached the buttons from my stash.  All in all, I think it was a pretty productive weekend.  I hope you enjoyed today's post.  Thanks for stopping by, have a great week.
Imagine, Create, Enjoy!