Sites of the week

YAY!! Today I get to show of some Valentine’s projects. You’ve probably noticed that the stores wasted no time getting the Christmas stuff off the shelves, just to make way for the red, white and pink goodness to replace it. These two projects feature stamps from MFT’s upcoming release, BE MINE! The first project is a magnetic closure tag from Petaloo {available thru MFT HERE}. They are great for gift cards or just cute projects. In case you are wondering, the magnet is not right where you place the gift card, so you will not be automatically erasing your gift card when placing it in these.

Here’s a close up of the coloring…

The second project I have done is an altered coaster. First, I covered the coaster in dp from KI Memories. The subsequent circles around the pic were cut using the Creative Memories cutting system. Personally, I can’t stand working with the Coluzzle. I am sure it’s user error, but I can’t get that thing to work for me consistently, therefore I switched to the CM stuff that rocks! I stamped and attached embellishments and then covered the back in a piece of cardstock cut with the largest scallop circle Nestabilities die. Finally, I attached a magnet to the back so that I can hang this on my fridge. If I worked outside the home, I would have this on a filing cabinet in my office.

I’ll have another sample to share with you tonight at the MFT Cocktail Party. See you there at 9 {EST}!!

I have never played any kind of ladies night in game before {like Bunco, etc.}, but a while back I was invited to play Pokeeno and last Thursday I was finally able to go. Yay!! What the heck is Pokeeno, you ask? Well, you get a card that has five rows of five playing cards on it. There is someone that calls out playing cards from a well shuffled deck and, just like Bingo, you try to get a line across or diagonal. We also played where you had to get the whole border, or a certain letter, etc. It was fun!! Everyone had to bring a gift in the $10 price range. I, of course, wanted to make what I was bringing. I was recently inspired by THIS acrylic block set from Becky Oehler’s and decided to do my own spin on it and this is what I came up with.

I made this with the $1 block from Michael’s. They are less than 2 inches square, so they would not work for coasters, but they did work nicely for this wall hanging. I also used rhinestones instead of the {Bella} baubles that I am hoarding. The letters are cut from the Red Tag Cuttlebug Alpha and the paper that I used on the back is from American Crafts. The SU! Old Olive ribbon is adhered with 2 strips of red liner tape on the back of the blocks. To get the loop to stay, I sewed it down {sorry no pic}. The bow was adhered with hot glue. I also made a matching tea tin to package it in. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things and the circle is from PaperTrey. This turned out to be quite a hit, and I think that it would be fun to make more of these with different holidays in mind.

Verve Visual has gone CLEAR and has released FOUR brand spankin’ new sentiment sets…and they are only $6 each!!! It’s ok to do a little Christmas shopping for yourself!! If you liked the first release from Verve, Thoughtful Phrases, you are gonna LOOOVE the new sentiment sets. You can check them out HERE. They fit right inside the word window punch from SU! In addition to those sets, Julee “remixed” both Starlight Starbright and Wonderful Wishes! Oh, and by the way, you might just wanna check out the sale section, too!!

Today I am sharing a little ornament that I made using a small clear top tin from Oriental Trading Co. I lined the inside with my new favorite pattern from American Crafts…gotta love the red with white polkas! The inside edges are lined with SU! Basic Black cardstock. I glued the lid on using Crystal Effects and then wrapped black twill around the tin. The bow was created from black twill, too, and then adhered with hot glue. The sentiment is probably one of my faves of all time and is from the Wonderful Wishes set. I stamped it on SU! Whisper White cardstock and then punched it out with my Marvy scallop heart punch {the yellow one}. This was such a fun and easy project to make!! I am going to write a little sentiment of my own on the back and we will have this on our tree for years to come.

You can see more projects from the Verve Visual Design Team HERE. To visit the Verve Blog click HERE; you’re gonna flip when you see what the others have come up with this week!!

A week or so ago, my friend Susan came over to play while Ellie was at school. She said she wanted to try doing an altered file folder like the one that Taylor had on her blog. Susan said she wanted to make hers a Christmas planner. While I thought it was a super cuuuute idea, I never intended on doing one of these, especially since my Christmas shopping this year is super light since our family decided to draw names (woohoooo!!) and we are not hosting any kind of festivities (HUGE wooohooooo!!). Once she got here I decided to give it a shot. WOW!!…that was fun…and A LOT of work, especially since I had no plan for it and was flying by the seat of my pants. You’ll notice that there isn’t anything on the inside cards because I intend to give this away as a gift to a dear friend of mine and I would like her to alter it as she sees fit, maybe a scrapbook of sorts, maybe an organizer…who knows!

Here’s a shot of it closed. I chose not to put a ribbon closure on this one, but think that it would be best to do on organizers, especially if they will be rattling around in a purse.

Here’s a shot of it opened up. I chose to do something a little different, yet a little the same for each of the panels.

I used a combination of papers on this projects. The red and white polka dot paper is from American Crafts. The ornate green has the reverse of the red, green and white stripes and is from Making Memories. The cardstock that I used is from SU! The images are (from L to R) SU!, Stampendous, The Cat’s Pajamas and PaperTrey. I do not have the exact dimension of the cuts that I made, but Taylor has a very helpful tutorial that you can see HERE.

***ETA*** The stamps that I used on the front of this are from the $1 section at Michael’s.

Before I get started, just wanted to let you know my final article for Craft Critique is running today. It’s all about papercrafting with the Janome Sew Mini…something that I love!! This is my final article for Craft Critique, as I have stepped down from my Senior Reporter position. I hope to continue writing here and there for them in the future, tho!

Yay!! Nichole named my project an honorable mention last month. Since then I have had quite a few requests for the template/measurements of this project. Below I have posted a template. Please note that it is not to scale. It wraps around the box and there is a seam in the back. This can very easily be altered for a hidden seam. I attached the bottom portion with red liner tape, but the top portion is not attached so that it can easily be slipped on and off. We made one of these for my last stamp camp and the box was filled with peppermints. The boxes are available from PaperTrey and also through Impress. Hope this helps everyone with the question, “How did you do that??” ”

**Click for larger view**

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Come on back tomorrow for a sketch for you to try!! This one is pretty interesting!! Happy Friday!