Congrats Card (painting dew drops) - A ScrapBuster Sketch

I mentioned earlier how we had a ton of graduates among friends and family this year. So I've been doing some congrats cards lately. Today's is another one, and a great way to use up spare embellishments and random bits you might have sitting around (go ahead and admit it, we both know you've got 'em!).

Do you remember candy dots? On the rare occasion my parents took us to see a movie, I got the privilege of eating them. I always loved them, and even the bits of paper you would get with them.

mmmm... candy dots :)

How does that translate into scrapping you ask?! Well, dew drops always remind me of candy dots. And honestly, I had forgotten I had them and how much I love them. There are a million ways of coloring them, but did you know you can paint them?

And if you don't have any dew drops, I suggest you head on over to the Robin's Nest and pick some up - pronto! You can get them in different shapes and colors and even better, they have dew dew glue to attach them to your projects!

Now... onto the tutorial!

Supply List -
cardstock for card
various embellishments (with lots of different texture)
chipboard letters for sentiment
acrylic paint
foam brush
tweezers
dew drops
adhesive
craft knife (if desired)

First thing you want to do is get all of your painting out of the way. For the card, I put a small amount of yellow paint on a 1" foam brush and ran a single strip down the middle of my card.

I also painted all of my chipboard letters black (not that you can tell they are letters).

Now for painting the dew drops. For this technique you don't want a huge glob of paint, so you will want to spread it around some with your brush. This is what my scrap paper looks like...

Grab your dew drop in your tweezers and gently squish (technical term, right?) the bottom of your dew drop in the paint. I keep constant pressure on my tweezers while I'm doing this. Those bad boys are difficult to pick up if you drop them in the paint.

Keep in mind that you don't want too much paint or you'll have it all over the sides, but you want enough to cover the entire bottom. This is a picture of good coverage...

I also make it a point to wipe off my tweezers before picking up the next one, that way there is no paint transfer. My house has a lifetime supply of baby wipes, but do whatever works for you. :)

You'll want to put them top down to dry, trust me on this. The wet paint will act like an adhesive and you will wind up with paper on the bottom. And I wouldn't suggest putting them on your project immediately because they are slippery and you'll wind up with paint smudges.

Here are some of mine, all lined up and waiting to dry...

While everything is drying, go ahead and gather up some embellishments. This is a great way to use up some older supplies that you might not be interested in putting on your page anymore. I wanted lots of different textures so I grabbed some shaped buttons, mesh, foam, ribbon, cardboard and some wire.

To curl wire, I use linesman pliers (love those things, they have so many uses), a pen with a clip and my fingers. Super easy.

Slide the end of the wire under the clip on the pen like such and wind it around. The clip helps keep the wire from sliding around while you are working.

Keep coiling the wire around and leave a short end piece so you can hold it with the pliers.

From there, slide it off the pen and hold the end piece with your pliers. You can twist the curled end of the coil in deeper if you wish (I usually do just to avoid cutting myself - which happens frequently). Gently pull on the end of the coil to separate it a bit. At this point you can cut the end piece off or leave it. I tend to leave it to give me a spot to adhere it to my project.

At this point, your card and letters should be dry. Go ahead and place your sentiment along the painted stripe on the card and start attaching embellishments of your choice.

Once all your embellishments are attached, your dew drops should be dry. You definitely want them to be dry, so if they aren't feel free to enjoy a cup of tea and come back. Using the tweezers again, place the dew drop on the glue dot (painted side down). At this point I usually switch to a craft knife for better control. I slide the tip of my knife under the glue dot and pick up the dew drop and place it where I want it on the project. I wanted the colors to somewhat overlap into each other, which is what I used the dew drops for.

Take a final look at your card and add any other embellishments you would like to use. Stand back, admire your work... and mail it off to somebody who will love it equally as much!

And don't forget to check out the other cool things at The Robin's Nest and the blog, which has some really inspiring pieces on it!

This is also a ScrapBuster Sketch! Here's the card sketch for you to work with.

Altered Wood Box

Tuesday is here and today I'm sharing an altered wooden box I made for Braelyn's room. I'll put my complaints about the IVP at the bottom so you can easily ignore them! ;)


The wooden box is actually from Melissa & Doug - a playdough set. I love their toys, and so do the kids! :) The box was cumbersome to store the supplies in though, and I knew it would be perfect for altering. I just didn't know what. LOL!

So I painted the box white and it suddenly dawned on me that Braelyn needs some extra stuff in her room. Since Grayson already has his name in his room (and various other stuff) I decided to do something fun for Braelyn.

I have these huge letters for years, so I figured that would be a great way to use one up. The papers are from Momenta and go perfectly with the color scheme in her room.

So after the wooden box dried, I cut the background paper and attached it using the xyron 900. I also ran the B through the 900 and attached it to the paper. After I trimmed and sanded the B, I wrapped some beading cord around it for dimension.

Next thing was putting the name on there. I decided not to center it since the big letter wasn't going to be centered.

Since I didn't want the B flat against the back, I used helmar liquid glue dots. Not the best picture, but hopefully you can see what I mean in this picture. I let that sit overnight (I am notorious for putting my fingers where I shouldn't and squishing that to nothing).


The next day I added some layered flowers, a flourish and some random gems around. Nothing too much though because I didn't want to overpower the emphasis on the huge B. And if I'm being completely honest, it means more to dust.



So that is it - cute project that came together quickly. The only thing left right now is to get it hung up. Wonder how long that will take me?!



Now, in case you are at all interested in my kidneys and IVP I had yesterday... feel free to read on. The IVP wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. It took a little over an hour and I didn't have to be completely still, only while they were actually taking the x-rays (huge plus). The original girl who tried my IV (notice I said tried, LOL) completely missed the vein. Now I'm not afraid of needles, and I'm completely willing to let people learn... until it hurts! Thankfully another girl stepped in and got it sorted out. And she wasn't lying when she said I would get a warm feeling in my throat and then in my bladder. How does that happen, you would think it would flush through my veins but it doesn't.

So I finished my exam and had an appointment with the urologist yesterday afternoon. Turns out I've managed to form another kidney stone. That makes three right now. The only good news, they are small and if I can get them to move they should pass without problems. Getting them to move seems to be the problem though. So I think total I'm up to 14 now, all in the past few years. I have to have some more lab work done in a few weeks to see if the new meds are working... it is possible this stone formed prior to me starting it.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Tuesday! See you tomorrow - and I plan to share some of the things I've done from my pinterest boards. :)

Making Flourish Stencils

A really quick and easy tutorial today about making your own flourish templates using Momenta's blank stencil sheets. I love doing this, and they don't even have to be perfect - which makes it so much better! The supplies you will need: hole punch blank stencil sheets (I'm using 4"x5") sharpie flourish pattern

For this first stencil, I made a copy of a set of crystal flourishes I purchased - this isn't the first time I've used my copy either. 1. Place the blank stencil sheet on top of your flourish and use the sharpie to dot where the crystals would be.

Here you can see that I didn't copy all of it - just the parts that I wanted to use.

2. Use your hole punch and punch holes where you placed the dots. They don't have to be perfect either - you can fix that when you use them on your page.

Here is my punched out stencil. You can see in the upper left corner where my holes got a bit crooked.

Now take your punched stencil and use it on your projects.

You can use a pencil to make dots on your project for places to put gem stickers, dots of glitter or just to go back and add a bit of a doodled flourish to your page.

And I wanted to share, you don't have to do this solely with a copied print. Here is a photoshop brush that I printed off to do the same thing.

I told you - super easy! And you'll get much more mileage out of the stencil than your purchased gem flourish. :)

And just as an example, here I used the new One Fine Day line from Momenta and used Dimensional Pearls with my stencils to create the flourish.

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone is having a great Halloween weekend. I thought I would share this spooky card I created using Momenta products. So here ya go, just a quick & easy tutorial!


Supplies:

Earthtones Cardstock Pad (PA-0659), Pure Textured Cardstock Pad (PA-1036), Acrylic Alpha Stickers (ST-1788), Black & White Gem Stickers (ST-3056), Scissors, Liquid Adhesive, Glitter and Black Copic Marker

The first thing you want to do is cut all your pieces. Your card base (orange cardstock) should be 8.5x5.5” (fold in half to create the card). I also freehand cut the two ovals and V shapes for the spider legs.

At that point, I used my black copic marker to shade the spider pieces. I simply ran the marker across one side of the legs and around the ovals. You don’t have to be particular or make sure everything is perfect – the mistakes add character.

From there, you will want to glue your two ovals together to make the spider body. Overlap them slightly, but remember the smaller piece is the head. Flip the spider body over and begin attaching your legs on one side, using the angle point to line them up.


Remember – spiders have 8 legs so you want 4 on each side! (It is very possible that it is just us pregnant ladies that need the reminder, but I thought I would throw it out there for ya). ;)

Flip the spider back over and use black gemstones for the eyes.

While the spider is drying, use the acrylic alphabet stickers to put the word on your card on the bottom right corner. Attach your spider to the card using pop dots (or other dimensional adhesive). Add a drop of glue to each leg and trim the left legs so they aren’t hanging off of the card (especially if you are putting it in an envelope)!

From there, embellish your card as desired. I simply added a web string of black glitter to give the appearance of the spider crawling down.

Quick and easy cards are perfect for those last minute needs (you know, the ones we always forget about)! And we all know I'm all about the quick & easy!

Hand Tree from Momenta Papers

I would first like to say that this project was not my idea. I found it done somewhere (I'll look for the link to add) with fabric and of course, I had to turn it into a paper project. :)



I really thought this project would be MUCH harder than it was. As it turns out, it was really easy - except tracing G's hand/arm.

• He is 2
• He doesn't get that he should stand still EVER
• He wanted to do the tracing
• He wanted the 'hand'
• He wanted the ink pen once we finished (smart choice mom)
• He then drew all over his belly
• He had to be cleaned up

But, it's all in good fun ... so it's no biggie and if that is the worst that happens today, after yesterday I will count my blessings.

Now, onto the project.

For this one, I used the following papers from Momenta:
Earthtones Textured Cardstock PA-0659
Relax Textured Cardstock PA-1035
Occasions & Celebrations Paper PA-1992
Metallics Paper Pad PA-1161

Other supplies include an old frame, Helmar 450, a burlap scrap and my Xyron Cheetah.
All these things I had on hand in my overstock room (have I mentioned I'm trying to clean that out?).

So, here's the tutorial, which probably isn't needed at all since the project is so simple.

1. Pull apart frame and discard any unwanted materials (the paper picture, the mat, etc).

2. Apply adhesive to the front side of your frame back board (this is where I used the Xyron Cheetah for a wider coverage area).



3. Lay burlap over the 'sticky' and be sure to smooth it out.


4. Turn piece over and trim next to the edge.

The finished back board piece should look like the picture below. Go ahead and set it to the side for a few mintues.



Now... onto the actual tree...

5. Trace your victim's hand & arm up to the elbow (sorry, no picture as it was hard enough to get the tracing down).

6. Place the traced hand onto your brown cardstock and cut it out.
* If you are good enough to do the tracing directly onto you cardstock I go ahead and bow down gracefully.
* And my son's forefinger is really not deformed and that much skinnier than the rest - he just likes to squirm.

7. Cut all of your leaves from the various patterned papers/cardstock. I went with freehand, but you can easily do this with your cutting system.

*If freehand cutting, stack your papers and staple in one or two corners to keep them from sliding as you cut.

8. Using your glue (I used the Helmar 450 for the following steps) begin attaching your leaves in an upward & outward motion. You may want to leave the hand sitting gently on the burlap so you have an idea of where to start.

9. Finish attaching your leaves and then attach your hand.

10. Reassemble your frame and hang it up! And, if your child is like mine... smile at the fact that he recognizes it is a tree (and a hand) as he tries to climb the wall to exclaim and share his knowledge!

Quilted Stars Tutorial

This was so simple, and really I don't know why I'm even bothering to type up the tutorial... with the exception that I am deranged and didn't think of it earlier. So, maybe somebody else could use that simple (and gentle) smack to the head. Followed by the 'duh' that usually comes when you have a light bulb moment.

Now... I used the quilted stars on the last layout I put here on my blog (Eating Oatmeal All By Myself for Round One of the Treasured Hunt).

Here's a shot of it used on the layout...





So, beware this is picture heavy... but it really only takes 5 minutes or so to accomplish (maybe a few more if you are hand sewing).

Supplies Needed:
Fabric (I used some courdoroy scraps I had left from purses last year)
Scissors (good for cutting layered fabric)
Batting, Felt, Fleece, etc.
Needle & Thread or Sewing Machine
Fabric Pen
Template (or freehand if you are good)

So now let's get to the fun part...

The first thing you want to do is trace/mark your template (or freehand your shape) on the WRONG SIDE of your fabric. Now, don't get me wrong, you are welcome to do it on the right side, but I'm not nearly that good. For my template I used a star chipboard piece I had in my stash.

Here is a pic of my traced copy.

At that point you want to place it against your backing material (I used a couple scrap pieces of felt). You can see my markings through the fabric. If you can't see your markings through the fabric you might want to try tracing gently on the right side of the fabric.

Then just start sewing on your markings.... easy peasy!

On this piece, I sewed the star shape then decided to encase it into a square. Excuse the toy cars - he was trying to bribe me away from my project, but I couldn't crop them out - cause he was so cute about it!

Once you finish sewing you can either keep it square or cut the star shape out. And more car toy bribes.

Here are the finished pieces. They took no time at all and they actually looked really cool!






I did use a contrasting thread on my pieces, but you don't have to. I thought it would make the star shape a little more emphasis. This really was super easy and made a great coordinating and textured embellishment for my page.