SnowMobiles

I just hosted my first 'Mommy & Me' class and we made some cute little SnowMobiles. I totally couldn't resist the pun :)

I created the top in MDS using the Festive Flurry Digital kit. I love that with these images you can stretch them to be as big as you want without any distortion. It made for an awesome top to hang the strings down from. I actually printed this out twice and glued them together back to back for a little added stability.

For the dangles I used the retired sizzlit snowflake strip. To attach the snowflakes to the strings I used glue dots, and then covered up the otherside of the dot with a small punched circle. On some of the snowflakes I also added a punched circle to the front to give it a little extra pizzaz. I especially liked using the silver glimmer paper to add a little pop to the center.

To attach the strings to the top of the mobile I just punched a small hole and ran a bit of the string through. Then we attached it with a glue dot on the top side (and covered the extra glue with another punched circle). Since the strings are fairly light this was enough to hold it in place.

The one other tip I have for making this is to be sure to spread out your large and small shapes in order to make sure the mobile hangs fairly level. And if it doesn't, just go ahead and add more spots to the center of the snowflakes on the side that isn't heavy enough- it doesn't take to much to get it to level out and that is a good spot to 'hide' the extra weight.

Hope you enjoyed our project. Flutter by again soon!

Merry Christmas

Hope you are having a blessed Christmas Day! I'm sharing my day with our close family and I'm so excited for my little boy's first Christmas :)

I'm loving the trendy chalkboard look this year. It makes me think of Caribou Coffee... and that makes me think of Chai tea. Mmmmm.... Chai.... and now I'm craving one! Anywho, back to the task at hand- I took my inspiration for the back from the chalkboards they have in the Caribou shops. They just give you a header to write about and then leave some chalk out for you to fill up the board. What do you think of my take on it:

There are a couple of good downloads with a chalkboard background in them. This one is the Convention 2012 photobook. It actually has a couple of different color chalkboards in it- Love That!

Then, the key to achieving the chalkboard look is all in picking the right fonts and playing with opacity. For some great chalkboard font ideas I suggest searching Pinterest- it is always a wealth of information :)

Have a Merry Christmas! Hope your day is as Jolly as Santa himself :)

Caution: Elf Crossing

So every month my mom hosts a scrapbooking class and they do a themed page. Just check out this adorable spread they made for December!

Well, when I saw this the first thing I thought was- I wonder if I could do that in MDS. So here's my take on the page.

The layout uses DSP from the Season of Style product line. Then I used a couple of pine stamps (thank you search feature), ornaments, bows, and LOTS of punches. Most of the punches are also featuring some sort of special crop to make them the sections of the punch I want- it is really awesome that we can do this in MDS now :)

Now all I have to do is add some photos on top of the DSP pieces (but behind the ribbons) and I'm ready to go for one of my Christmas layouts. Yay! There is a lot of things going on in these pages- it took quite awhile to get all the details in- so let me know if you have any specific questions on how I did something and I'll be sure to make a post for it!

Hope you enjoy! Let it inspire your holiday scrapping too. Have a blessed Christmas Week.

Creating my own Embellishments

I loved the World Traveler Photobook for my trip to Glacier National Park. But it just didn't have embellishments for everything I needed. Like for the page with the kids blowing bubbles- the travel themed decorations just didn't seem to fit. So what is a girl to do...

Well with MDS the answer is always to improvise! And there are so many ways to do so.

First off I created matching bubbles :) I used a circle punch and filled with the blue World Traveler DSP (don't forget to add a shadow for extra dimension). Then it just had to have a little 'shine' added to it. To create the reflection I actually made my own punch. Did you know you could do that with MDS? All you have to do is select a punch and instead of adding it select edit instead. Then you can move the object anchors around to achieve the shape you want (for my shine I altered a circle). Isn't that cool!

I also wanted the background paper to look spotty. By doing a search I was able to find a stamp that would do just that. I blew it up really big (love the new .svg file types) and turned down the opacity so that it wasn't overwhelming. It turned out pretty cool- it matches the rest of the book but yet has its own style now.

Last but not least by doing a search for 'bubble' I came across the little image of the boy and girl blowing bubbles from the Storytime Ensemble. I thought that they would fit perfectly on this page. I didn't want the bright colors though, so I recolored them to a nice neutral brown and shrunk them down so it would look like they were sitting on the picture.

Flutterby again soon like the Bubbles!

Let's Talk About an Oxymoron

I have to laugh when I hear the name for the stamp set "Gorgeous Grunge". I mean, really, what is gorgeous about being grungy...

Don't get me wrong. I like the stamp set. The splatters are classic and add a fun effect to lots of cards. Kinda like the old splatter tool that Stampin' Up! used to sell (but without the requirement of markers and way less messy).

But then a fellow demo from my group showed me this card. Now I get it- this 'grunge' set really can make some gorgeous stuff :)

Then of course you know me. Anything with butterflies and I'm sold. Love those pretty little creatures :)

I did hear a couple of 'rules' for using this set though:
1. Don't use brown with the streak stamp (Eww skid marks)
2. Don't use red with splatter... your recipient may worry that you bled all over their card (then again if you are making a Halloween card by all means do it on purpose!)

Stick to those rules and you should be making 'gorgeous' cards yourself in no time :)

Be like the snow around here and "flutterby" again soon :)

Christmas Countdown

Only a couple of days left before Christmas- if you haven't started to countdown with your kids yet there is still time!

Here is what Elli and I are doing to watch Christmas get closer:

Isn't it fun? Best part is that it was super easy to make with her too. First I threw this sheet together in MDS. If you click on it it will come up full size and then you can print it up too!

The squares are sized big enough to fit the scallop square punch- so just cut the printout into strips and the punch out the numbers you need. Elli loves helping me punch!

The rings were made from the Season of Style paper stack. So if you have one handy that will be great! Otherwise you could use any Christmas paper or plain cardstock. I cut the strips 6.5" x 3/4" which should give you 6 strips per sheet of the paper stack (I actually made two of these- for the first I cut 4 per sheet of paper stack but I didn't like the finished look as much). Then staple them into rings and tape the countdown numbers on. And you've got an adorable little countdown!

Elli keeps asking me "Are we counting down Mom? Are we counting down right now!?!" She is so cute. Just old enough to really get into the anticipation of Christmas. I can't wait to share the season with her :)

Hope your holiday season is Merry and Bright!

Clearance Rack Blitz

What is better than getting something fantastic off a clearance rack? Getting it off a clearance rack where the prices have just been dropped even lower!

Seriously, you have to go check this out :)  Say Hello to last minute Christmas stocking stuffers. WooHoo!

If you guessed a banner, You're RIGHT!

Update: I did in fact have this ready to go last week... but apparently it works better when you push the "Publish" button instead of save. Opps :) Guess that is what happens when you have a LO that is making you horribly sleep deprived! Well, belated or not, I hope you enjoy today's project ;)

I wanted to use my Build a Banner kit to make a festive banner for Christmas. Although, I wanted it to be able to stay up all winter, so I stuck to the "snowy" side of the holiday. Do you like how it turned out?!

I tried both sponging and spritzing the ink on. The letters I did with a sponge dauber in Island Indigo, and the chevrons/spots were spritzed on in Bermuda Bay (10 drops of reinker and then fill up the rest of the spritzer with water). Personally I liked the more refined look of the part I sponged on- the spritzed part was wetter and thus more apt to bleed. Also, it made the banner curl so I had to flatten it out again after it dried. So if I make another one I'll stick to the sponge daubers. But if you prefer the more watercolored look you should go for the spritzer all the way :)

I added more pizzaz to the banner with the snowflake pennants around the letters. For these I used the Winter Frost Paper stack, Festive Flurry Framelits, and Silver Glimmer paper. To make the small, blue 3D snowflakes I cut two of the little framelit, removed 1 of the six sides from each and then folded them back and forth in a circle. Then I attached them together, overlapping them by one 'pattern'. The final effect was the cute little lolly snowflakes. For the big silver lollies I used a 1/5" x 12" piece of the glimmer paper and folded it ever 1/2". Attach the ends together and flatten. So sparkly :)

I also added a little bling bling on the 'b' with a Frosted Finishes Embellishment. I love these things. They are so pretty and elegant!

Hope you flutterby again soon!

Daniel Tiger Party Wrap-Up

The last project I have to show you from our party in the neighborhood of Make Believe is the cute banner for over the food:

Daniel Tiger always likes to refer to things as "De-licious!" and I thought that would be perfect to have with the cupcakes. The picture doesn't do justice to the cuteness this banner has :)

As always I started with MDS to make the banner. I used the pennant shape punches and filled them with my custom DSP. I was able to fit 6 to a page (imagine how huge this would have been if I made them bigger!!). Then it was just to add the letters to the center- or on the ends I added Daniel with a Trolley instead of a letter. Here is a close-up of the printed pages:

    

To wrap up the party I also wanted to show you a couple of other photos too. The bottle labels turned out so cute printed up- I even got orange and brown pop for the tiger theme :) Although... it helps if you remember to put out a pen for people to use to write there name on the bottle!!! Silly me with my sleep deprived brain.

And then here are a couple of toys I picked up to use as a center-piece. This seriously cute trolley goes 'ding-ding' as it moves- the kids all LOVED it. Of course the Daniel Tiger figurines were a must too :)

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this little adventure into the world of Daniel Tiger :) Or if you aren't a fan of the show (as I'm sure no person without small children is) I hope you got some party decor ideas out of it- just add your own theme and off you go!

Flutterby soon!

Can you guess what I am busy doing...

Here is a little hint :)

Sorry to keep it so short today. Life is busy around these parts! If only my LO would take real naps, then I would have more time to craft. Someday perhaps :)

Flutterby again later this week. Hopefully I'll show you the final product... but if not I'll at least have a little more birthday decor for you.