fascinating felt...

I can finally share this card that I made for Paper Crafts Magazine awhile back that is published in their newest issue "Color Inspiration"! I had fun using felt on this one for my background!

I'm way addicted to making my own felt pieces now for projects. I just cut a piece of brown felt from the craft store with my pinking shears, then layered a Pink Paislee Artisan Element over the top with a Jenni Bowlin butterfly sticker and pins. The canvas heart stickers are from Pink Paislee also. The sentiment is printed on the cardstock with the computer.

Something about the texture of felt that I love! Check out these other fun felt projects I found to share with you! Some sweet felted owls from Only Muttix.

A pair of felted baby shoes from Old School Acres.

Adorable pillows from PB Teen.

More pillows by the Purl Bee.

Some pencil toppers by Whimsy-Girl.

ABC pillow from the Lemon Drop Tree.

Love this fun table runner made of felt and these gorgeous pillows by Nordstroms.

And last but not least, how about this adorable felt robot from Craftster.org!? 

SOOO many great ideas there. I don't know about you, but these projects make me want to RUN to my scrap room right now and make something fun! :)

a winter wonderland...

Back to the blogging world! We had a wonderful Christmas together, a quiet one, but it was nice! Last night it snowed, so the girls were thrilled to go out in it today and get rid of some of their energy! :)

Same with Maggie. :) She couldn't wait to don her new little sweater. ha

Here she is holding her leash, ready to go!

In other news, have you seen the Pink Paislee blog today? I made it one more year on the team and feel so lucky that they have kept me so long! Thank you Pink Paislee, and I look forward to a great 2011!

taking a short break...

I wanted to pop in and wish you all a happy holiday season if I don't post on my blog again before the 25th. I'd like to take a short break from blogging and crafting to spend quality time with my family over the next week or two.  We have cookies to bake and gingerbread houses to put together, Christmas books to read, lots of gift wrapping to do and memories to be made together! :)

May your holiday be very blessed with family, friends and happy moments! Have a very Merry Christmas!

P.S. My deepest apologies to Casey, our cat, who didn't make it into our family photo this year. Oops. :)

'Tis the season...

...to be JOLLY...and gosh oh golly, we need your help!

Melissa Frances is trying to plan classes and workshops for the new year, and we want your input!

Please stop over to the Melissa Frances blog and leave us a comment (or even two) if you have ideas for class projects, techniques you would like to learn or you can even tell us what you look for when signing up for a class!

We'll randomly draw a name or maybe even two on January 3rd and send a beautiful array of Melissa Frances Christmas goodies your way!

holiday treat bags...

Do you need a quick, inexpensive last-minute gift? I have made a slightly different version of these before for Halloween, which you can see HERE, but on those I cut out the center, so you could see the treats inside. On these little gift wraps, I just decided to dress up the front with some holiday items! I made a little tree on the front of one with May Arts leaf ribbon by cutting the leaves apart and arranging them into a tree shape.

These are just the outside wraps. You would fill a cellophane bag full of candy or treats and then tuck inside and adhere at the top (punch a hole in the top of the bag and tie shut with the ribbon or twine). I used some holiday paper and die cuts by Graphic 45, May Arts ribbons and leaves, twine from the Twinery and Melissa Frances pearls. The snowflakes are ones I found at Target in the holiday section. They were originally made for sprinkling on a holiday table. Confetti - I guess you would call it!

Full directions to create these will be posted on the Glue Arts blog today!

Jenni Bowlin December kits are up for sale!

Here are a few things I made this month with the JBS kits...

The reds and yellows reminded me of my wedding colors, so I scrapped one of my favorite wedding photos from 11 years ago. You could use these for so many things though, including Christmas pics! There are a variety of colors this month. The big flowers are from the the add-on. Originally, I was going to dangle them on my page for ornaments, then I changed my mind to a wedding page. I've done so many Christmas pages lately that I am running out of pics from last Christmas to scrap. :)

Next, a little card made with the Pink Paislee - Sweetness paper (background), Basic Grey die cut from the add-on (black and white), Sassafras sticker (floral) and a Jenni Bowlin bingo card which I covered some of the numbers with the hearts from the blue heart paper.

I don't know what it is about hearts lately!

Lastly a tri-fold card with the Pink Paislee paper. I think I loved the polkadots this month! Polkadots and hearts... I felt the card needed the white to lighten it up a bit.

I wanted to make more with the kit but just ran out of time this month...such a versatile kit though...check out the main kit HERE and all of this months' kits HERE. I hope you will take a gander at them!The rest of the gallery updates should be up later this evening!

dreaming of a white Christmas...

We don't have snow-covered ground yet, but it is coming our way in a couple of days! Just in time for the holiday.

For the Glue Arts blog this week, our job was to make an ornament with Making Memories paper and die cuts that they kindly donated to us. Thank you MM!

I decided to make a little tree that you can hang as an ornament- but it also does double duty. The box underneath can hold a small gift or note for the recipient.

I used some of MM's gorgeous flocked paper, cut wide strips and scalloped the edges, then layered the pieces onto my tree starting at the bottom and working my way up. To adhere the paper, I used some small pins with pearls on the heads.

I added a few snowflakes with pearl pins as well. Then with the Glue Arts Hot Glue Gun, I hot glued some "snow" to the middle of the snowflakes.

 

The little gift box is an inexpensive wooden box from the craft store, which I covered with the papers and added a gift tag and snow inside. For full directions, see the Glue Arts blog today!

Stay warm out there!

the appearance of cameos...

A few months ago, Paper Crafts asked me to create something with a cameo on it for their Jan/Feb issue. I wasn't sure about cameos at the time, but after looking on-line and finding all kinds of neat ideas with them, I was excited to create something for the issue! Now...I am seeing cameos everywhere!

I used Jenni Bowlin papers, pin and button, Pink Paislee Artisan Frame, Prima flowers, cameo sticker by Glitz, and the stamp is Simply You by Technique Tuesday.

Here are some other ideas I found when searching....love the necklace, would be such a cute idea for a gift! 

Be sure to check out the other cameo projects in this issue when you get your copy - they are adorable!

Using up some scraps...

Yesterday I worked on a bunch of cards, just simple ones, for a friend of mine. She wanted me to make some card packs for her to give as gifts. So I thought I'd share a few that I made with you. They are mostly made with scraps that were on my desk....or things I used recently and were visible to me while creating! ha I tend to do that often...reach for what is most available to me.  I'll just share a few of them with you...

The green is a Parisian paper by Pink Paislee that I sprayed with Olive Vine Glimmer Mist, tan/orange paper is Sassafras, twine is from the Twinery, snowflakes are from Target (in the holiday section), rub on is Melissa Frances.

This one utilizes Queen Bee paper by Pink Paislee (green), Jenni Bowlin (purple) and Crate Paper -Restoration chipboard, Melissa Frances rub on, twine from the Twinery, Artisan Element by Pink Paislee (flower in center of bow).

On this next one, I liked the clean look of the white doily on white cardstock, so I kept it simple with a bow, white felt butterfly by Jenni Bowlin and Crate Paper chipboard.

This gray paper on the next card is another Parisian paper once again by Pink Paislee and is sprayed with Graphite Glimmer Mist. The butterfly is Jenni Bowlin, sticker is Crate Paper - Restoration, Artisan Element by Pink Paislee.

More Crate Paper here with their stickers and paper, Parisian paper at top (text under doily) and ticket, Melissa Frances pearls and rub on saying.

Here I used an Artisan Tape by Pink Paisee wrapped into a flower and topped with one of their Queen Bee cork buttons and brads. Stamp is Ali Edwards by Technique Tuesday.

A set of boy cards - I'm not very good at boy cards, so I kept them simple with a tag and some punched stars. The old wooden stars were from my stash and a Melissa Frances rub on finished it off. Quick and easy.

I hope this gives you a little bit of card inspiration - maybe you know someone who would love some hand-made cards and want to whip some up quick to tuck in with their gift! Cards don't have to be difficult to be nice- just use some of your scrap paper and embellishments to make some simple ones. I think your friends and family will appreciate them! :)
Danielle

12 Days of Christmas...

I hope you are enjoying Pink Paislee's 12 Days of Christmas ideas! My assignment was to make 2 holiday cards with the Father Christmas line. I added a few bits from other lines, such as the music stamp behind "joy", which comes from the Parisian line! And the Artisan Element photo corner.

This card utilizes Father Christmas paper and die cuts (ticket and saying). The snowflakes were little ones I found at Target in their holiday section! I topped it with a Petaloo flower. The ticket is popped up with dimensional adhesive and I tied a piece of twine from The Twinery to give a little extra color.

Stop over to the Pink Paislee blog each day for your chance to win!

trimming the tree....

Speaking of trimming the tree from my last post, I just got around to scrapping a picture from last Christmas. This is my little Kati at age 4 decorating our tree! She loves to get dressed up for the occasion and let me take pictures. :)

I wanted to made a little patchwork banner with the chipboard and ruffles, like a garland on a tree. :) I used some light brown Suede Glimmer Mist and brown chalk on the chipboard pieces and Olive Vine Glimmer Mist on the punched out circles, which brought out the embossed design in the paper.  I added some machine stitching to the page and the letters.

This is the Parisian Anthology line by Pink Paislee, including the papers, Ruffled Darlings (ribbon), Flair (silver gem), Corrugated Elements (banner pieces), Corrugated Alphas and the Parisian tickets. Would you like to make this page? Pink Paislee is selling these kits on their site and tonight the House of 3 are hosting a webshow to show you some more creative ways to use this kit. Kits come with full instructions for all of the projects included. (my page is just one of them!)

Also today is the start of Pink Paislee's 12 Days of Christmas!! You won't want to miss that event on their blog, lots of holiday inspiration for you.

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Yesterday, I received a Swedish magazine in the mail called, "Scrapbooking M.M." They asked me to do a couple of cards for this issue...

I wanted to try working with felt, so I created my own little Christmas tree. Papers, brads, and stamp are Holly Jolly by My Mind's Eye.

The shapes on this next card were made from Jenni Bowlin chipboard. I cut my own star from felt. It turned out a little darker than I hoped, but I think the mix of colors are kind of neat and different.

Love adding lots of layers and details...
I stamped on the patterned paper and stitched on the black cardstock.

That's it for me today! Enjoy your day. xo
Danielle