Melting Snowmen

You know what I love about Spring? The snow melts and goes away. And it gets warm... and warmth means long walks with my kids and fun outside without freezing my tooties off (I was a skater as a child, and now the cold just makes my feet instantly hurt- I think it may be mostly psycological, but either way I hate cold feet :P ).

So keeping with our melting snow theme, here is a water bottle label I designed. We originally used it at our winter retreat, but I think it would be even funnier now for a springtime party. You could even have one bottle open with bits of carrot, rocks, and buttons in it (obviously that one would not be for drinking).

Hope you enjoy this idea! When I design water bottle labels like this I always start with a 2.5" x 8.5" strip (that way you can print 4 to a page). In this case I actually made the background paper (snowflakes) myself with a bunch of stamps colored to match the stripes. This allowed me to turn down the opacity on them, which made the words and snowman 'pop' so much better.

The snowman is colored in using the freeform tool. When I did this I had the freeform layer on top of the snowman, which will cause some of his lines to get covered. But, then just by moving the stamp back on top it cleans up the image really nice. Also, notice his carrot nose... that wasn't in the stamp image, but made in the freeform tool as well. Fun right :)

Flutterby again soon!

Come Back Spring!!

I don't know how many of you are in the midwest like me, but spring had finally come for us. The birds were even singing their happy spring serenades. But, alas, spring was only here for a short time- now it has been violently ripped away by more cold and storms :( Brrr.... I'm pretending that it isn't happening. I refuse to believe my eyes this week.

So let's think happy spring thoughts today while we await the return of springtime. Like this festive, flowery spring card by my friend and fellow demo Tara. Isn't it beautiful!

I really like how she layered our two sets of matching flowers and punches. The larger of the two is the Flower Shop Bundle from the main catalog, and then the smaller is the Petite Petals Bundle from the spring mini. I can't tell you how much I love having these matching stamp and punch sets. I absolutely detest cutting detailed designs out by hand. If you tried to make me cut out these flowers I may just have to tell you where to put that scissor (why back in your craft box of course... what did you think I was going to say ;) ) and I probably wouldn't even buy the stamp set myself. But give me a punch and I'm one happy camper :)

Alright, now I need you to do me a big favor. Cross your fingers, tap your heals together three times, or do whatever you have to to send spring back home to us now. Did you do it? Yay- a big thanks from all of us here in bitter cold MN.

Hope you (and spring) flutterby again soon!

Banner Blast

Banners are so fun right now. So I was really excited to see both the Banner Blast stamp set AND punch as part of the Sale-a-Bration FREE products. Here is the first card I have made with the set.

Now I can't claim credit for the design- I saw a couple of these out on pinterest (I won't give credit to any one card in particular because I don't know who the original is). But I loved the layout and the sweet pop of colors so I decided to try my own variation on it :)

Also this gave me a chance to tell you about the versatility of the punch. You really are not limited to one size flag! If you punch it the traditionally way you will always get the same size, but try this out next time. Cut a strip of paper just slightly under 1/2" wide and slide it into the forked part of the punch from underneath. That way you will only be punching the "V" portion. Then you can trim it to whatever lenght you want. Awesome sauce, am I right :) That is how I achieved the longer underlayer of flags in this banner.

Flutterby again soon! And don't forget, Sale-a-Bration ends in just a little over a week so make sure

It's a Circus Around Here!

Or at least that is what some days feel like! But that would be a story for another day... today I'm actually talking about a Circus Theme Party :)

I can't believe that my little Declan is going to have his first birthday in about two months. Time sure flies! Which means I need to start my planning NOW (or I will be scrambling at the end). I decided on an "Admit ONE" theme, since he's turning the big ONE... and the tickets will be for a Circus :)

I'm so excited for these invites. I decided to think outside the box on this one. So, in MDS instead of designing on a standard card size, I chose to make a custom size (at half of a 12 x 12). That way I can print two to a scrapbook page and cut them in half to send. Sound a bit big for an envelope? Never fear- I will use a double z fold to make it a standard size card. If you don't know what that is stay tuned for pictures of the final product :)

For now, here is what I've got from the digital planning end. Love it?!?!

Almost everything on this layout is from one piece of the Big Top Birthday DSP. I used an outside photo editing software to separate the animals from the tent (and then 'fill in' the holes they left) and remove the ground and sky. This allowed me to use them like embellishments on the page so that I could have them wherever I wanted them. WooHoo!

Then, to make the tent bigger, I used the crop feature in MDS. This allowed me to repeat the center portion of the tent and stick it in the middle to make it longer. Lastly I fancied up the bottom triangles (they didn't match up when I repeated the top portion) and then added a scalloped border between the top and bottom to hide the seam. It looks like it should be part of the tent :) The final effect made for one big long tent- perfect for this card design!

Do you have any circus party ideas for me? I would love to hear from you- creativity always works best with outside inspiration :)

Flutterby again soon. Spring is in the air- soon the butterflies will be too :)

Good as Gold

The title kinda sounds like another St Patty's day post. To funny- this has nothing to do with little green men though- but instead the Good as Gold card kit that you can get for FREE through Sale-a-bration.

I love the gold envelope liners- but it seems such a waste to hide all that shiny-ness down in an envelope where it won't be seen. So, I 'reclaimed' the bottom part by cutting off a strip. I left plenty at the top that it wouldn't show, and then used a little glue to hold it in place in the envelope. I used this scrap of gold paper to make the extra flags for my card- and paired up with the banner punch (also FREE through Sale-a-bration) they made a super cute addition to my card.

Isn't the gold foil just so spectacular? I love that even the gold spots printed on the card are foil and shiny too! This card kit is sure to impress (and you don't even have to tell anyone it cost you nothing :) ).

Flutterby again soon!

St Patty's Day Poppers

We all know that the 'traditional' ways to celebrate St Patty's day are, well, not really kid appropriate. In fact, at my last trip to Walmart (rare occurrence here in the Twin Cities, but that's a different story) I saw a shirt that said "Beer + Beer = Shenanigans".

But I wanted something fun for my daughter (other than just wearing green)- last year we made Leprechaun cookies. This year, with the poppers (aka crackers... still sounds like an afternoon snack with cheese to me) all the rage, I pulled out my handy dandy MDS and got to work on a festive hybrid version.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

I used a wide array of DSP to make the rainbow sides, and the middle is the grey chalkboard paper from the Convention 2012 download. Also, I didn't have any rainbow embellishments, so I made my own using the freeform tool. There are so many cool things you can do with that if you give it a try!

I sized these at 4" x 5.25" so that I was able to print 4 of these to a page (my printer does a 1/4" border). I removed the border from the short side, but kept the one on the long side to use as the tab to hold the popper together (Note: this is very important- and I learned the hard way to NOT cut it off :P ). Then I scored the ends in at 1/2", 1", and 1 1/2"; and then the long way it is scored every 1" (leaving the 1/4" tab on the end).

I used the envelope punch board to make the holes. It really is the perfect size for this project, and I love that you don't have to try to line up a 'partial punch' with one of the circles or ovals. I measured in 1" from each side using the punch board (so that the center of the notch lined up with the orange/yellow border and the green/blue border if you are a more visual person).

I'm planning to fill with skittles for my daughter and her friends. I hope they like their little handful of the rainbow!

Flutterby again soon :)

Escape Your Winter Blues- Butterfly Lantern

This project was inspired by a picture we saw while shopping- and my mom knew we just had to make it. Isn't it the best! Really puts me in the mood for spring :)

The center is a 8.5 x 11 piece of vellum that we rolled into a tube by attaching the two short sides together with sticky strip (you've got to use the red tape to get a good hold for this project). Then we took a 12 x 12 piece of white paper and cut it into skinny strips. I added the variegated blue color to mine by spritzing it with blue re-inker. I really like how it made it look like sky :)

The strips were then all taped (sticky strip again) into the top and bottom of the vellum tube. Most people went straight up and down with their strips, but I off-set mine a little to give it the spinning look. What would you do if you made this project? Straight up and down or at an angle?

Last, but certainly not least, we added all the beautiful butterflies. They are from the Papillon Potpourri stamp set and punched out with the large and small butterfly punches. The coloring was done before punching- you could color them however you want, but our vehicle of choice was sponge daubers.

I'm thinking I'm going to hang an electric tealight in the middle of this using some fishing line. Won't that make for a sweet effect? Hope today's project gave you the flutters :) I do love me some butterflies.

Flutterby again soon!

Escape Your Winter Blues- Other Cards

Aside from the watercolor notecards, our event attendees got to make 3 other cards as well.

This first one should look familiar too you :) I promised I would show you a pic of my final hybrid card and here it finally is! See, wasn't it worth the wait? it is super cute with the finishing touches of that yellow twine :)

With V-day right around the corner we also did a Valentine's Day card. I absolutely love the color scheme of this card. The DSP was from the Holiday catalog, but if you don't have any left lying around you could substitute a different monochromatic DSP swatch. And don't forget the red glitter paper- the sparkle and bling really makes the difference.

And thinking ahead towards spring we cheered the day up with some orange tulips. These are seriously my favorite flowers (especially the frilly tulips- LOVE). What do you think?

Hope you are loving seeing all these samples. I still can't believe we made SO MUCH. It was a long day- whew :) Flutterby soon, cause I've got one last project to go (and I saved the best for last!)