November Workshop

The workshop this month is going to be so fun! I have learned some new techniques and am so eager to share them with you!

We will do pleating, embossing, and of course stamping.

Another really fun technique is Flip Flaps! So fun! You can add these to any page to add something extra. I will show you how! Plus you can make a pocket in the Flip Flap to insert a tag (or journaling, or more pictures, or memorabilia).



So fun! The workshop is on November 17th. Coming up fast! 7 pm at my house! Let me know if you need my address or directions. Please rsvp so we can make sure there are enough Flip Flaps and paper for everyone! See you there!!

Costume

I keep making costumes for Jackson to try to save money...
it turns out I never do!
I made Jackson a Knight costume this year. At least it is really cute! He is very excited!

Scrapbooking Weekend

This past weekend I went with my family up to the cabin for the stout's annual scrapbook retreat. It was so fun! I was able to get a lot of fun projects done!...

Halloween Necklace! I love the way this turned out!



Junior High! Crazy. This layout was so easy. The pictures were already black and white so I stayed with a black and white layout and added orange in for NLJH. :)


Cute little Jackson helping me garden. I used paper, paint, rub-ons, and stickers on this cute page.

Mother's Day this year was pretty fun. At my grandparents the whole family put our hand prints on tablecloths for my grandma.
On this page I had fun layering stamps, and using a black and white scheme with a bit of teal.

I finally finished the title pages for our Honeymoon! Ha, only four and a half years later!

Hard Work!!

Finished product (Love!!)

So our huge project this summer was refinishing our table. Above are some pictures of the finished product. I had no idea it would take so long! My husband and I now appreciate the art of refinishing and agree that we are done for a while. :) The stair banister was already black so I decided to go with black legs and chairs with a stain on the table top to match as close to our bamboo floor as possible. Tip: If you are thinking of refinishing consider all of the nooks and crannies that your piece has. If it has a lot like ours did, paint! It takes too much work to sand down to the wood grain in order to stain. That is why I chose to do a mixture of stain and paint.
It took a lot of time and work, but I love it!!

Before...boring!

Most Recent

Here is my most recent scrapbook page. The event happened a whole year ago, but I guess that is just how I do things! :)

So Many Projects...So Little Time

I have been working on too many projects lately! I keep telling myself to just stick to one project at a time but I just can't! So here are some I have been working on lately.

I made a picture tree out of wire. It had a hard time standing up when I put the pictures on so I was trying to figure out how to get it to work when my sister-in-law saw these blocks and said, "Hey you could drill a hole in those blocks and put it in there. Brilliant!! So I did just that and it works great, plus it adds a little extra! Thanks Sheena!



Something that I have been loving lately....Spray Paint! I got this lamp in high school I think. Well it was a textured silver color. It was great as it was but just didn't match my front room so I picked up some spray paint and went to town on it! Now it matches great!



I also went to town with the same spray paint to transform these picture frames for the same room.

My sister got this beautiful print when she was in China that says something like Families Can Be Together Forever. I love it and have been looking everywhere to find a frame that fits but isn't too expensive then I found these album frames at Michael's 3/$10! Perfect! Just add some spray paint and they are perfect to keep the focus on the beautiful art!

My next spray painting project....these chairs that were left behind when we bought our house! :) Stay tuned to see how they turn out...

Cute Ideas

Isn't this board so cute! I totally want to make one! I just think that Jackson would love this project! Ha. Kristine Mckay was on Studio 5 on Wednesday and had some awesome ideas about including games in your home decor. I love this idea! I love playing games with my family, in fact there is hardly ever a time when we get together with our families that we don't pull out one of our favorite games!

Check Out her blog at www.kmckaydesigns.com

Ribbon Flower

I saw this cute flower ring on Studio 5 and had to try it out!

This flower is just made out of ribbon. First, you cut circles out of ribbon in varying sizes. Don't worry they don't have to be perfectly round as you can see. :) I just searched around my craft room and kitchen to find a variety of circle sizes to trace onto the ribbon. You can use all different colors, and monotone or do a pattern.

This is the fun part...You are actually going to burn the edges of the circle using a candle or a lighter. I prefer the candle because you can use both hands to guide the ribbon where you want it to go.


It only takes a second for the edge to curl in the flame, then turn the circle until the whole circle curls upward.

After you get a lot of pieces done you can arrange the circles together to make a flower.

I figured out an easy way to arrange all the circles and keep them together, making the process much easier...a pin. Just stick a pin through the center of each circle and they are so much easier to arrange.

Here is the flower with a brad to hold it all together. You can also sew the pieces together with embroidery thread, add a button, beads, or any other embellishment that you can sew on. These are so cute as rings, on headbands, as hair pieces, or add them to your bag or sweater, there are so many possibilites!

Like I said I got this great idea from Studio 5. Here is the link to the video.
http://studio5.ksl.com/index.php?nid=61&sid=10313353
You will have to copy and paste it.
I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, or questions...

This is a picture of a quilt I made for my sister-in-law's baby shower last October. My mom and I picked out this adorable fabric, and I made this rag quilt. They are pretty easy to make as far as quilting goes. :)

Add some Flair with Glimmer Mist!

So I bought a bottle of glimmer mist a while ago and I still hadn't used it yet. I was not sure how I wanted to use it...then I thought of using stencils on white paper to help make it stand out more. So I found a big circle and a star to place on the page and then I 'lightly spritzed'. I love that glimmer mist now! I am going to have to buy more colors at the Scrapbook Expo this weekend (which I just can't wait for by the way!).
I also used a stencil for the star border along the bottom. I decided to do it in three different pieces to add some 'flair' and texture. The stitching along the outside of the misted circle was also a fun way to add texture.

This shows a better look at the fun star that I left white during my misting. This also shows a close up of another thing I tried out and that was the vanishing ink pen. It is quite fun I must say and I am going to try it out some more!

The slurpee picture on the top turned out blurry and it was the only one that I had so I decided to put a "film" over the top to help make the blurriness look like it was on purpose! I also wanted to try the technique of putting words on top of pictures.
I started with vellum, but the piece I tried wasn't see through enough to see how cute the picture is. So then I had the idea cut the edges off of an old 8.5 x 11 sheet protector and use that instead. I know what you are probably thinking...a piece of transparency paper would have been a lot easier but I didn't have any and I only had a little bit longer until nap time was over! So I slid the sheet protector sheet into the printer to print the word yum in orange and it worked! I was very pleasantly surprised that it turned out so cute. Beware when you try this though that it takes a long time to dry! So you may want to use a heating tool to help it along without getting too close or it will wrinkle the protector.

Go Jazz Pillow!

My son is a sports fanatic. So for his sports themed room I found some Utah Jazz fabirc and just had to make a pillow case for him. He loves it, and pillow cases are so easy to make!!

"Enjoy" Bracelet

I made this bracelet last week but I wasn't sure that it was "worthy" to put on here. I don't know what I was thinking though because I made it, so I am going to display it. That is the reasoning behind this blog!

Felt Headband

This was my second attempt at making a headband. The first attempt was for a birthday present for my sister. (she is going to send me a picture soon) I made a scroll out of felt for this design. It was fun to make and turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself. :) However the next time that I make a skinny design like this I will have to make it out of something stronger than felt! It was pretty difficult to cut out and it tore a couple of times.

Clip Art Technique

So I read about a technique that I had never thought of before. It is quite obvious, but I just hadn't put two and two together! The technique is to print off clip art from the computer and use that in your layout. However, I didn't want it to look like I had just put ink pictures on here, so I modified the technique to fit my style. Which is always good to make it your own right?!
I modified by tracing the arrow I found in clip art to the blue paper, then I found a big bold block print to type Georgia, and printed that off as well. I had to cut out the letters instead of trace them because the blue arrow was too dark. For the journaling block I found an exit sign that looked real online then printed it off. I wanted to be accurate so I pieced green and yellow paper to make the sign including chalking the edges for the look I wanted. My favorite part was the map. I found an outline of the US from clip art and printed it onto tan paper. I painted the map to distress it, let it dry, and then crinkled it up to make it look even more distressed. Like maps are supposed to look, at least in my head! Last of all I stitched the route that my brother and sister-in-law took to get to Georgia. And Voila! Clip art fun for scrapbooking! It was so fun and I think you should try it! Let me know how it goes for you!!

Peg Board Idea

So I came across this awesome idea and it kind of makes me even more anxious to have my own craft room! As soon as I get my own space I am totally going to get a peg board and turn it into fun wall art/storage!
Check out some others:
http://www.diyideas.com/blogs/teamdiyblog/author/bkohoutek/