These are for my niece Maegan, for her newly decorated bedroom. I could have used a little more practice with the Mod Podge (there are some wrinkles) but I think they will look great on her wall. The "A" has loops to hold photos and is from PBTeen with some added fabric and ribbon for color-coordination.

Labels: crafts, paper craft

Every year for Christmas I give my husband a photo calendar with photos from the year just finished. I usually just go through Snapfish or Kodak. Since I am now the proud owner (finally) of a working color printer, I decided to design his calendar myself.



Each page is 6" wide and 11" tall and has photos from our three 2008 trips - Costa Rica, Chicago, and Las Vegas/Arizona. I highlighted our birthdays, work holidays, and anniversary.



I was going to punch a hole in the top of each page to hang it but I found this cool clip and glued a magnet to the back instead, to hold the pages and hang at work on his magnetic wall.



My original inspiration for this came from Story by Mia on Etsy with this calendar - now sold out.



I am so happy with this! It will be fun next year to redesign with 2009 photos.

Labels: paper craft, photography

I can't even begin to tell you how belated this wedding gift is! Actually, thanks to my archives, I can - this is for my cousin's wedding I went to back in September of 2007. Yikes!



The album comes unfinished, so I covered it with some paper and ribbon. I love how this looks!









It was fun to dig into my neglected scrapbooking supplies. My scanner is on the fritz and I wanted to get this in the mail, so the photos aren't fantastic, but I like to be able to look back for ideas of things I've done - these will have to do.

Click here for the rest of the album.

Labels: paper craft

I still have a long list of sewing projects, but I decided it is past time to get started on a few long-awaited paper projects.



I haven't done any true scrapbooking for a while, and it has been fun to work with paper again! I have quite a collection, because I am no better at resisting pretty paper than I am at resisting fabric.



Next month, Pete and I celebrate our fifth anniversary, and each year as our anniversary approaches I swear I'll finally finish our wedding and anniverary scrapbooks... Doesn't look like I'll make it this year, either.



These paper projects are good after work projects, so hopefully I'll make some quick progress!

52 Nights Update - Night 25 - Last night was great. The weather was a little cooler thanks to some thunderstorms so I went with my running partners to the track for a little speedwork, made dinner, then spent some time in my craft room on the above projects, plus a new sewing project. Deadline on the sewing project is fast approaching so you should see it here soon!

Labels: 52 nights, paper craft, wip

Thanks for all the positive feedback on the tea towel apron!

I have been having so much fun browsing Etsy lately! Almost everyday I add a few new favorites to my list. Recently I went on a search for cute bookplates for my growing library and instead picked up these stamps from Sweet Paperie.



Wouldn't an address stamp and stamp pad with some personalized stationery make a cute bridal shower gift? I got a bookplate stamp and an address stamp. Here's the bookplate in action...



Rather than use a stamp pad, since I wanted the two colors, I used my favorite stamp pens.



A neat trick I learned - take as long as you need to color your stamp, a different color for every letter if you want, and then just "huh" your warm breath on it before stamping to make the ink moist.

I also treated myself to a new pair of earrings - I seem to wear pink all the time, and that was all the excuse I needed to get these from Shy Siren.



I've even found shops for supplies - beads, fabric, vintage, etc! I sneaked these beautiful beads into my cart the last day of January, just under my "No New Supplies Month" deadline:



And the title of the post comes from a fairly new blog, Etsy Love. Between blogs like this and the always fresh Etsy front page, it won't be hard to keep finding new shops to love!

Labels: jewelry, paper craft

I'm sure you all have foolproof methods for organizing your photos, right? Well, my system is just to stick all my photos in a "Crafts" folder on my computer, and then edit them when I want to do a post. So pictures sometimes get lost... I totally forgot to post these cards I made for my aunt at Christmas!



These were my annual handmade cards, though I only made one set for my aunt, my most appreciative recipient! I was inspired by all the cut paper around lately, especially at Amy's. Isn't this shadow gorgeous?



I haven't done any other papercraft in a while, other than my heart poster. Instead I'm getting the urge to work with yarn again... I finally couldn't resist Alicia's adorable Baby Bella Dress pattern, especially after seeing Nikki's post on it. Since it's an electronic pattern, I'm calling that a loophole in my "no new supplies" month! We'll see if this burst of crochet energy goes anywhere...

Labels: needlework, paper craft

Inspired by posts here and here , I dug through my (embarassingly large) patterned paper piles and made this today:



I am a little embarassed by how shamelessy I copied mks's collage, but I also love how the different papers and colors make it look totally different.



I had a 12x12 frame I've been meaning to fill forever so in went this collage and I got it up on the wall.



My sister will be happy to see that I also finally got some pictures in the frames on my shelves! Including one of my favorite pictures of all time, me and my sister and my dad on a camping trip years ago.



How satisfying to go from inspiration to completion in a lazy weekend afternoon!

Labels: craft room, paper craft, quick fix

During one of her holiday visits my sister brought me this plain wooden frame, with the first of many annual Santa pics of my nephew Charlie. She thought with my scrapbooking supplies and fun things I might be able to spruce it up a little.



Here is my quick fix to make it more Christmasy and cheerful...





A little Mod Podge, scrapbook paper, and glitter... I thought I might have gone overboard, but she really liked it!

Labels: paper craft, quick fix

For the past couple years I've made a set of handmade notecards to send with the goodies I bake for our extended family. I think this year's might be my favorite!



I made them using the same method as my postcards for the swap.




The packages are all their way, put in the mail Monday - the last day the post office garaunteed priority mail by Christmas! Nothing like waiting for the last minute!

Labels: paper craft, sewing

A long while back I ran across these cute magnets at Wrapables. (Love that shop!!) My instinct has always been to avoid buying anything I could make myself, so when I ran across tiny wooden clothespins at Hobby Lobby, I decided to give it a go.



First I pulled them all apart. Then I painted them, let them dry, glued on tiny pieces of paper, let them dry again, put them back together, glued on the magnet, let them dry... You get the idea. This process, amazingly enough, didn't take very long.







I really like them! I used the super strong tiny magnets, and they are awesome. My fridge is so cheerful now...

Labels: paper craft

Well, I've been quite silent lately. It's not that I haven't been crafting... Work has been busy, and I just have been too tired to make that step from crafting to posting. In fact, I made my mother-in-law a necklace to hold her glasses (very cool, with a ring to put her glasses through) and didn't even take a picture! I did take a picture of the card I made for her...



I truly only made this card because everything was so easy to get out and put away again. More praises for my craft room!

Another neat thing... I'm a little late posting this, but I was featured on a cool blog, ThisNext. Thanks for the mention!

Labels: misc, paper craft

Several times now I have seen (and bought!) adorable notecards in Target that have little seed beads on them. Here is my interpretation:




Click on the pic above to see all the cards, and closeups. I also decorated the envelopes! They're just blank inside, so they can be for birthdays, thank yous, congratulations, anything!

Labels: paper craft

I am so late onto this bandwagon, but I finally made some marble magnets! There was a neat ad for scrapbook paper in one of my magazines, and I liked the samples but needed an idea for them... ta da, magnets!



I'm not sure I used the right kind of glue, or if they'll last, but it was fun and cheap, so I don't care!

Labels: crafts, paper craft

I finally finished the gift album for Pippa and Matt! Their wedding was in February, so I'm not too late. I'll get it in the mail this week. My scans aren't all that great - some borders got cut off - but you can get the general idea. The patterned paper is by BasicGrey and most of the embellishments are Making Memories. Enjoy!

Click here for pictures.

Labels: paper craft

Remember back in November when I said I had bought the paper for the parents' wedding albums I promised them?? Well, I finally finished them!! I was able to give them to Mom and Karen on Peter's and my 1 1/2 year anniversary, which seemed appropriate. I only scanned the pages from Mom's (I ran out of time) but they're both pretty much the same. The family-specific pictures are different in each album, but I mostly made two of the same page, one for each album. Okay, no more talk:

Click here for pictures

Labels: paper craft

So Peter keeps joking that he wants to take my huge 11x14 bridal portrait in to hang in his office... Instead we're going to hang it above the piano, but I thought he might like a more appropriately-sized picture of me for his desk... Well, being the crafty scrapbooker that I am, I couldn't just frame a proof. Instead he's getting this:



The red grosgrain ribbon matches our wedding colors, and I liked the feel the aluminum accents give. I think he'll love it!

Labels: paper craft

Wow, I can't believe how much I've gotten done in the past two days! (Skip the next paragraph if you just want to see pictures!!) Monday night I made peppermint bark and the dough for a double batch of both gingersnaps and jam sandwich cookies (must think of a better name for these). I also put photos in the albums I'm sending all the grandparents, and started the notecards I'm posting below. Last night I helped Peter do a few chores to get ready for our furniture delivery and Mom and Dad staying here, and then I got to work finishing the baking and crafting. I rolled, cookie-cut, and baked all the tops and bottoms for the sandwich cookies, and while they cooled I baked all the gingersnaps. During baking, I made title pages and notes for all three photo albums, and finished the notecards. Then I filled the sandwich cookies, and got everything bagged and ready to box for the mail!! This morning I got up early, and now have everything packaged for mailing. As soon as I post this, I'm going to put on my shoes and head over to the post office - hopefully the line won't be too long and it won't cost too much!!

Okay, now the fun part. This card set is made with 7mm silk ribbon, used like embroidery thread. The large pink flower was my first, and I learned a lot on it. I think if I did these again they'd come out a lot better. Here are all four cards:









And to be complete, here's how I signed the back:

Labels: paper craft

Okay, okay, it's been a long time since I posted. Sorry! Here are some awful pictures of the very cool (if I do say so myself) wedding album I made for a family friend's wedding. I had her mom send me some pictures pre-wedding, and included them, and left space for a picture on each anniversary through their 15th. I'm very happy with the way it came out!!

Click for pictures.

Labels: paper craft