Love Turtles

I thought my giraffe babies needed some friends so I made love turtles. So cute for Valentine's Day or wedding or an anniversary type card.
Here are the pieces to make them: just about everything is sponged or lined with marker to give it depth. Also heads are on with dimensionals.

shells - 1 3/8" circle in mellow moss
shell bottom - word window in always artichoke
head- 3/4" circle in mellow moss
feet - 1/2" circle in half in always artichoke
legs - word window in mellow moss
eyes - 1/4" circle in white and small crop-o-dile hole in black
tail - part of a 1/2" circle in always artichoke
rocks- ripped paper in basic gray and going gray
water- brocade blue ripped
background - regal rose
hearts - heart to heart punch in regal rose

Enjoy!

Baby Giraffe Twins!

When I made these last night I knew I couldn't just do one card with these little guys. Here are the baby boy giraffe twins! If you change one of the boys bows to pink, it could be a great Valentine, wedding or anniversary card too!
To see how to make them, CLICK HERE

Giraffe Valentine Baby

I got inspired tonight to work on some new punch art. Here they are, Mommy and Baby Giraffe!
I thought this would be great as a Valentine's Day card or as a New Baby card. There would be so many cute ways to personalize it! It was really easy but uses a lot of punches so here we go!

I am going to start with the mom. She is made out of barely banana sponged with so saffron and Close to Cocoa paper accents. Her spots are Really Rust. Her tongue is regal rose.
head- tab punch with top rounded off with scissors
ear tufts - horizontal slot
ear tufts tops - 1/4" circle
eyes - 1/4" circle white and large crop-o-dile hole black
side ears- 5- petal flower, brown is just trimmed down a little smaller to fit inside
mouth/chin - large oval
mouth/tongue - large oval and small oval
nose - large crop-o-dile hole(wrong in this picture)


Here is the baby. She is made out of So Saffron sponged with so saffron and Creamy Caramel paper accents. Her spots are Really Rust. Her tongue is Pretty in Pink.
head- 1" circle
ear tufts - horizontal slot
ear tufts tops - large crop-o-dile hole
eyes - 1/4" circle white and small crop-o-dile hole black
side ears- 5- petal flower, both are trimmed down a little smaller
mouth/chin - small oval
mouth/tongue - small oval and again trimmed down
nose - small crop-o-dile hole


Baby's body - 1 3/8" circle
spots - 1/4", 1/2", 3/4". Put them on and then trim around sides.


Here is the moms head next to the baby.


Moms neck- wide oval trimmed to moon shape with spots, then trim spots after you glue them on.


baby's feet - 1/2" circle cut in half
back of card - really rust
grass - 1/2" x 4 1/4" Old Olive cut with scissors for blades of grass
hearts- heart to heart punch in regal rose - sponged
baby tail - 1/4" circle
baby's legs are drawn with black marker and gone over with So Saffron, same with tail.
The background white is 4" x 5 1/4" and is sponged lightly with Brocade Blue.

Hope you like them! I can't wait to make something else with them already!

Guest Designer!

I have been chosen to be a guest designer on UStamp with Dawn and Friends with love... 2010! I will post a new project to this site and I have one free pass for access to the site to give away!
If you respond to this post by December 31st you will be in the running to get the free pass to the site with access to all the projects!
Just comment on this post and I will announce the winner in a few days!

Baroque Valentine

I had to do one more card before bed! Here it is! I used Baroque Motifs in Pretty in Pink and then again slightly off using Rose Red to make it pop a bit(with the stamp-a-ma-jig of course, the best invention ever!)
To get the Regal Rose paper the right size to fit on a card I started with a 4.75" x 6" piece and then used the Scallop Edge punch on all four sides. The hearts are cut using the Heart to Heart punch and popped up with dimensionals. Most edges are sponged of course. I thought that this was a really nice quick card.

Mini Felt Flower

My daughter got a matching red jacket to mine this Christmas and once she saw my flower pin she had to have one to match. I made hers with out the biggest circles so it wouldn't be as big. Here is her with her new pin. To see the original post with directions CLICK HERE.

Felt Flowers with Pretties Bead

I saw these flowers for sale and just had to try and make one.
The sizes of the circles that I used are (5)2.25", (4)2" and (3)1.5". The entire flower is about 4" across. Pretty good sized but gorgeous. It's a good thing that I have all this scrap stuff that I never throw away so when I feel like doing a project I have it! The center pearl is the large off-white bead from the Pretties Kit. Where I saw this originally it said she used the circles die with the Big Shot which would have been much easier then cutting all the circles by hand. I do not have the circle die cut one :( ..... yet.

Here are all the felt circles cut out. The petals are just twisted at an edge and then sewn together.


I have had many questions for better directions on how to make these so I have added this in. Hope it helps! This is just showing the steps on one small piece of felt, this is smaller then the petals I said to use and another color.

I used a heavy thread and needle so it wouldn't pull through the felt.


For the large petals you have to fold the petal over on itself and back at one side like this and thread it on. I threaded all five big petals on one right after the other and then arranged and knotted them.


For the smaller petals I just folded them in half for some and others I folded like the big ones.


Just thread the needle through one after another and arrange them to look how you want. I did tie a knot after each different size of petals. Once they are all on I put some more stitches in to hold them a little better in an arrangement.


Here is the back of the real flower with the leaf sewn on.


With a safety pin on my coat. Nice and festive for winter.


I thought these would be great for a boutonniere for a wedding, they are beautiful and really easy to save after the big day. Also great to give parents or Grandparents as something special to wear!
I also have one other post with these, CLICK HERE to see.
To see the site where I originally saw them, CLICK HERE.

Woven Valentine Heart Card

I thought I would use the woven wreath design to make something else. To see how to make the weave CLICK HERE.
This did take a lot of ribbon. I did two separate halves and each half took 5 feet of 1/4" Red Grosgrain ribbon! I wove them slightly off center so I would have enough left over to tie the bow. They are kept down on the paper with large and small glue dots. For the scalloped background to fit on the regular card size I used a 4.75" x 6" whisper white paper and used the scallop edge punch on all the sides.

Here are the two halves before I put them down on the paper and ties the bow.

Wine & Champagne Bottle Cards

I thought I needed to do something for New Year's without letting it pass! I thought this would be a cute card to bring if you go to a New Year's Eve party and bring a bottle of wine or champagne.

For stamps and paper I used:
Red wine bottle- Frames with a Flourish, Wonderful Favorites, Defining Alphabet
Bravo Burgundy, Gold cardstock, Handsome Hunter, Kraft

Green champagne bottle- Frames with a Flourish, Celebrate everything, Life's a Breeze(for the bubbles in the middle of the card with Apricot Appeal cardstock)
Bravo Burgundy, Gold cardstock, Handsome Hunter, Ivory

First I started with a 8.5x11 paper and cut it in half to 8.5x5.5. I folded it the long way and cut my bottle out making sure to leave the folded part on the side so the card will open. (The green one I kept trimming so its a bit smaller.) I put them on the grid paper so you could see the general sizes but as long as you keep the proportions right it will look good.
I thought the champagne needed to have the bubbles inside so I just traced the outside of the card and the cut the inside smaller.
To give everything the look of a rounded bottle I used Close to Cocoa with a sponge on the edges of the bottles or ink to match the color of the paper.

More Beaded Snowflakes

I decided that one wasn't enough so here are my two little ones to go with the big one. These use other beads and jewelry making eye pins (I think they are called that). However the pretties kit does come with the white pearls in this size.

These are the eye pins that I started with. You have to make sure there is enough space in the straight wires to attach the other wire to them or it doesn't work good.To see the other post for the large snowflake using the Pretties Kit CLICK HERE.

Pretties Kit Beaded Snowflake

I used the Pretties Kit to make this beaded snowflake decoration. With Christmas over I needed to come up with something to decorate with once the tree is gone (even though this would make a great Christmas ornament too!). I thought I could do a winter theme. I used six of the hat pins and wrapped silver wire around the center loops to keep them together. All of the clear and pearl beads are from the Pretties Kit, the silver ones I had.

I started wrapping like this but did it neater in the end.


This is one strand of beads on the hat pin.


Hanging up in my house with Whisper White Organza ribbon.


From the other side. The pictures don't do it justice, it really sparkles nice.

Love You Much Tissue Box

I am ready for the next holiday!

This is a really simple easy project to do and looks really nice. I simply covered my tissue box with DSP (retired) and then used the Love You Much stamp set to add a little embellishment. Once these tissues are gone you can just open the next box and fill this one!

Just place the box over the DSP cut to the size of your box and trace the opening.


Once traced just cut it out. I would suggest using red sticky tape to adhere it to the tissue box. I used the Scallop Edge punch and some Very Vanilla paper for the ends of the box using my DSP scraps.

MDS iron on shirts

I made these shirts using My Digital Studio. The two kids on the right are mine and the ones on the left are my nephews. I got these turtle necks for $3.50 each and printed the snowflake on iron on transfer paper that you can get at most craft stores or even Walmart. I just sized them to what I wanted, printed them out and ironed them on. So simple and a great photo for the family!

Top Note Purse

I made this purse a while ago and didn't feel like starting again to take pictures and write up directions for it! Since then I found some really great directions for it on Allison Ohran's blog. I did mine pretty close to how this one was done. These purses are very sturdy, I made this about 6 months ago and my 4 year old has been using it to carry around her "stuff" since then with no problems. It has help up great!
CLICK HERE to see the great step by step directions I found for it!

Here is a picture of the inside that I reinforced. The handles are using 5/8" Very Vanilla Grosgrain with the 1/2" Rich Razzleberry Polka-Dot Grosgrain taped on using snail adhesive. Make sure you use the Tombow glue, your fingers will be sticky but this bag will stay together and it holds fast. I used red sticky tape to hold the ribbon on in between the outside top notes and the inside lining.


The butterflies on the front are using Flight of the Butterflies and the Butterfly Punch.


Just a regular panel using Very Vanilla cardstock and the Texturz plates Background #1 and then used a sponge with Rich Razzleberry to accent it.


Happy purse making!

Candy Cane Mouse

I saw something just like this little Candy Cane Mouse except it was for a big candy cane. You can see the big one by CLICKING HERE.
My little mousie uses the small candy canes with the ornament punch. The nose is the large circle with the Crop-o-dile and the ears are the 3/4" and 1/2" circle punches. I just did two ornament punched shapes and put them together with the candy cane in the middle using red sticky tape to keep it together. The eyes are drawn on. She is so cute!
Don't forget, if you do not have the Ornament Punch yet, it is only in the mini catalog until Jan. 4th!! Make sure you get it before it goes out! If you want to order one you can do it anytime with me online or email me and I can put the order in for you.

Christmas Candle Gift

I made a few of these candles to give as gifts for Christmas. The candles were too wide to make the strips (of 8.5x11 paper) go all the way around so I cut a square large enough to fit over the candle label to make up for the ends of my 8.5x11 paper not meeting. I used Serene Snowflakes embossed in white with Brocade Blue sponged over it. I used red sticky tape to keep the paper on.

The embossing and sponging take a while but very simple to do. A great gift that they can enjoy for the whole winter!
I just hope the last few people that I'm going to give the candle to don't see it before they get it! I haven't posted much lately because everything I have made is for gifts!

Teacher Christmas Gifts

These are gifts that my daughter and I made for her Pre-school teachers. Ashley baked the oatmeal cookies in the star tins all by herself and I made the boxes for them. A good team!

Folded 'V' Card Front

I saw this great fold technique on Valita's Designs and Fresh Folds Blog. CLICK HERE to see how to do this on her site. It is so simple and easy and really looks great!

For mine I used Serene Snowflakes with Brocade Blue and Night of Navy and the white gel pen. Her measurements are in centimeters so I just used the half way marks of the card dimensions.