January 14 - ENJOY Treat Box

I LOVE these clear treat boxes from Pageframe Designs! There are 3 in each package and they come unassembled but they are super-fun to put together. I was going to do 3 for The Scrapbooking Cafe's Project Weekly feature this week but I managed to punch an accidental hole in the side of one of them while I was putting it together with the eyelets, so I didn't use the one I messed up for the feature. But then I thought - I can't waste this box! LOL So I just played around with it and came up with this. I covered up my mistake hole with the big flower and pearl so no one knows it is even there (unless you look inside the box I guess!) :) If you don't get the Project Weekly email and want to see how the others turned out you can see them posted in the Pageframe Designs gallery on their website (linked above).

"ENJOY" Treat Box

Ingredients:

• Clear Box: Pageframe Designs
• White Eyelets
• Crop-A-Dile
• "Enjoy Stamp" Lovely Labels Stamp Set, SU!
• Mini Flower Stamp: Priceless Set, SU!
  
• Ink: Stampin' Up! (Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss)
  
• Cardstock: Stampin' Up! (Kraft, Whisper White)
• Patterned Paper: SU!
  
• Scalloped Punch: SU!
• Stampin' Dimensionals: SU!
  
• Green Rhinestones: KaiserCraft
• Flower and Pearls: Pretties Kit (SU!)
• Peanuts

Instructions:

1. Peel off the protective coating from the box lid and the box (both sides). Fold the creases inside and punch your hole for your eyelet where the tabs meet up on the lid on each side. Insert your eyelet and crimp together with your Crop-A-Dile on each of the 4 tabs to hold the box lid together.
2. Stamp your ENJOY image in Chocolate Chip ink on kraft cardstock and cut it out. Stamp the same image with Kiwi Kiss ink on Whisper White cardstock and cut out only the ENJOY sentiment. Adhere it on top of your craft image. Add Stampin' Dimensionals to the back. Add two small rhinestones on the stamped swirls.
   
3. Punch a scalloped circle shape out of matching patterned paper and adhere your ENJOY square to the top of that. Add more dimensionals on the back of the scalloped circle and adhere it to the top of your box lid.
4. Fold in your creases for your box and crimp an eyelet in the center of the tab to hold the box together.
5. Take a large flower from your Pretties Kit and stamp your small flower image from your Priceless set in Kiwi Kiss ink all over the flower. Add a small green rhinestone in the center of one of the stamped flowers on each of the big petals. With a large glue dot adhere it to the front of your box. Adhere a large flat backed pearl from the same kit in the center.
6. Add your treat to the inside of your box and you're finished! :)
   

January 11 - Sweet Little Feet Page

This past week was wonderful! Why? Because I became an aunt again to a beautiful sweet baby girl. It was not hard to get some amazing pictures of her since she was so beautiful (yes, I'm biased - but she really is!). I did this page this weekend of her sweet little foot. It's a simple page but I really didn't want to take away from the photo so I didn't put a whole lot on it.

Sweet Little Feet Page

Ingredients:

• Background patterned paper (Making Memories)
• Teal Patterned paper (Basic Grey)
• Kraft Cardstock (SU!)
• White Signo Pen (SU!)
• Scalloped Edge Punch (SU!)
• Mini Letter Stickers (Making Memories)
• Bookplates (SU!)
• Sticker Lace (Creative Imaginations)
• Pearls (Kaisercraft)

Instructions:

1. Adhere your 5x7 photo to your teal patterned paper in the top left corner leaving about a half inch on the left side and top. Trim the right side and bottom of the paper leaving about 2-1/2" on the bottom and the right side. Scallop punch the right side and the bottom, then adhere this to your kraft cardstock. Trim this to have 1/2" on the left and top, 2-1/2" on the right side and about 1" on the bottom.
2. Add your sticker lace on the right side of your photo half overlapping the photo and the other half on the patterned paper. Add your pearls down the side over the sticker lace.
3. With your white Signo pen add a dot on each scallop. You can also write your photo caption on the bottom inch of the craft under your photo.
4. Adhere this kraft with photo along the left side vine border of the patterned paper.
5. On the right side add your title with the small letter stickers then add your bookplates over each word.
   

January 10 - Clear Valentine Card

It is honestly downright embarrassing how long it has been since I've posted a project on this blog and I do apologize. I'm all about getting caught up and back on track this new year. :)
I've had some health issues that have made it very frustrating to work with my hands, which is partly to blame for my absence in December. I'm learning to adjust and deal with it. I've done a ton of projects today since we're snowed in so I have a lot of things to post during the coming weeks.

I absolutely LOVE Valentines Day and clear cards so I decided to do both with today's project. The girls at the Scrapbooking Cafe were sweet enough to get me a Sizzix Big Shot for Christmas so I've been using the heck out of the Stampin' Up! Top Notes die.

Clear Valentine Card

Ingredients:

• Clear Card (Pageframe Designs)
• Priceless Stamp Set - Heart (SU!)
• Short & Sweet Stamp Set - Love You (SU!)
  
• Big fabric flower (Stampin' Up!, Pretties Kit)
• Silver Bookplate (Stampin' Up!, Hodgepodge Hardware)
• Whisper White and Riding Hood Red and Pink Pirouette Cardstock (SU!)
• Riding Hood Red and Versamark ink (SU!)
• White Signo Pen (SU!)
• Sizzix Top Notes Die (SU!)
• Silver Embossing Powder (SU!)
• Stampin' Dimensionals (SU!)
  

Instructions:

1. Peel your protective coating off of your clear card
2. Cut the same shape on your Sizzix with your Whisper White and Riding Hood Red cardstock. Trim your white shape around the perferations on the edges to make it slightly smaller than your red shape. Adhere them together, white on top. Adhere this shape to the inside of your clear card.
3. Stamp your heart with Versamark ink on the Pink Pirouette cardstock. Sprinkle your silver embossing powder on it and heat emboss the image. Cut the heart out and put some Stampin' Dimensionals on the back. Adhere it to the front of the flower. Adhere the entire flower with heart on the front of your card covering most of your shape inside. This is where you can write or sign your card inside without having it show through because the flower will cover it.
4. Stamp your "Love You" image in Riding Hood Red at an angle at the bottom of the white shape inside of the card.
5. Line up your bookplate on the front with the card closed so that it will line up with the greeting inside of it and poke holes in the side of the bookplate where the holes are with sharp scissors. Insert your brads and cut off the ends of them before you spread out the prongs. This way they won't show through the front of the clear card.
6. Dot around the 3 open sides of the front of your card with your white Signo pen.
   

November 28 - Christmas List

I decided to take a non-traditional approach to my wish list this year. I had just received the Curly Label Punch Bundle this past week and have been DYING to use it. First, it's my favorite shape. Second, one of my absolute favorite things about Stampin' Up! is how they design their stamps and punches to work together - so much less to cut out!

So I made this little "list" out of a small clay pot, some sucker sticks and some Stampin' Dimensionals. And I made sure to put it where my hubby would see it! :) Oh and one more thing - they are two sided. So you can flip them around and see even more things I want this year!

But the BEST thing is this:
** EDITED TO ADD** - The Curly Label Punch Bundle is still available at regular price but the sale bundles have all sold out!
The Curly Label Punch Bundle is on SALE until Monday, December 1, with a lot more amazing bundles that SU! has put together. You can download the flyer here. Then to order online (they are selling out quick - some of the bundles have already sold out!) just go to my Stampin' Up! site, click on STAMPIN' UP PRODUCTS, SHOP NOW, SPECIALS, then HOLIDAY EXTRAVAGANZA.

My Wish List

Ingredients:

• Small clay pot
• Season of Cheer Rubons (SU!, Holiday Mini Catalog)
• Sucker Sticks
• Paper grass
• Silver Cord (SU!, Holiday Mini Catalog)
• Stampin' Dimensionals (SU!)
• Curly Label Punch (SU!)
• "Cute & Curly" Stamp Set (SU!)
• "Riding Hood Red", "Kiwi Kiss" and "Baja Breeze" cardstock (SU!)
• "Chocolate Chip" ink (SU!)
• Black Micron Pen

Instructions:

1. Apply your rub-ons to your pot.
2. Tie your silver cording around the lip of your pot.
3. Stuff your pot with the paper grass.
4. Stamp your curly label THANK YOU images on your cardstock and punch them out. You will need two of each color.
5. Write an item on each punched image.
6. Cut your sucker sticks to be 3 different lengths.
7. Lay the top of each stick on one of your punched pieces and put the Stampin' Dimensionals around the stick so it will hold. Adhere the other punched shape to the other side to sandwhich in the sucker stick. Do this for each stick.
8. Place them in the paper grass and arrange them so they are easily read.
   

November 11 - Thank You Mini Note

Audrey has the BEST teacher this year for Kindergarten. We were supposed to go on a Girl Scouts outing on Sunday that Audrey was really looking forward to, but I woke up Sunday morning horribly sick and knew I couldn't go. So Audrey's teacher who also has a daughter in Girl Scouts said she would be able to go with them. So I made this little thank you note for her - and yes, I do mean LITTLE. It's 2" x 2". I used some of my retired Stampin' Up! supplies on this one.

Thank You Mini Note

Ingredients:

• Scalloped Circle Punch (SU!)
• Whisper White Cardstock (SU!)
• Spring Fling Designer Series Paper (SU!, retired)
• Lovely Labels Stamp Set (SU!, dormant)
• Basic Black ink (SU!)
• Accent Tin Flowers (SU!, retired)
• Stampin' Dimensionals (SU!)
  
• Mini Pearl (Kaisercraft)
• Black Micron Pen (Sakura)

Instructions:

1. Cut your patterned paper to a 2" x 4" size and fold in half.
2. Stamp your Thank You image and punch it out with the scalloped circle punch.
3. Adhere your scalloped circle with Stampin' Dimensionals.
4. Draw black dots on each of the scallops.
5. Adhere your mini flower stickers and add a pearl in the center.
   

November 4 - Natalie Grace Super Cutie Page

I did today's project last week for the Project Weekly feature at The Scrapbooking Cafe. What a ham I have for a daughter, but she never fails to make me smile. :)

Natalie Grace Super Cutie Page

Ingredients:

• 2 sheets of Crate Paper Lined Patterned Paper
• 1 Sheet of green lines label paper
• 1 sheet of brown/blue patterned paper
• 1 sheet of Making Memories Small Letters
• Small Celery Kaiser Rhinestones
• Black Micron pen
• One 4"x6" photo
• Corner rounder punch

Instructions:

1. Lay down one of your sheets of the lined paper for your background.
2. Take your green label paper and punch out all of the perforated holes around the edges.
3. Cut a 2”-3” x 12” strip from your second sheet of lined paper. Set this aside.
4. Round the corners on your photo and adhere it to the brown back of your second lined sheet of paper (the scrap from what you just cut off). Trim so it leaves about ½” around the photo and about 1”-2” at the bottom. Round the corners of the brown as well.
5. Adhere your photo with brown mat to the brown/blue patterned paper and trim it the same as you did the brown with a larger portion at the bottom. Round these corners as well.
6. Take two of your brown scraps from your mat and adhere one under the top right side of your patterned mat with photo, and the other on the bottom left. Round the two corners that show.
7. Round the corners of your journaling strip and lay your layered mat down overlapping it so enough sticks out of the right side to journal on. Adhere this all on your green paper that you punched the holes from. Adhere this entire paper with photo mat and journaling strip to your background lined paper.
8. Take your rhinestones and add some in the top and bottom holes on your page that you punched out.
9. Write your journaling, add your title with the letters stickers and the page is done!

November 3 - Baby Shower Invitations

I'm going to be an aunt! :)
My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are having a baby girl, which means I got to make 30 baby shower invitations this past week (FUN!)

I tried to make the design pretty simple due to the fact that I had to make so many of them, but I really do love how they turned out. And here are the instructions just in case you would want to make something similar someday.

And GREAT NEWS! You can now order all of the great Stampin' Up! stuff you see featured on my blog through my website here: http://hollyvandyne.stampinup.net. Just put your mouse over "Stampin' Up! Products" in the menu and select the SHOP NOW link. If you list me as your hostess to order you'll actually save on shipping, etc! :)

Baby Shower Invitations

Supplies:

• Whisper White Cardstock (Stampin' Up!)
• Kraft Cardstock (Stampin' Up!)
• Pink and Blue patterned paper (Basic Grey)
• Onesie and Baby Shower Stamp (Melissa Frances)
• Curly Label Stamp (Daisy Bucket Designs)
• Chocolate Chip ink (Stampin' Up!)
• White Signo Pen (Stampin' Up!)
• Scalloped Border Punch (Fiskars)

Instructions:

1. Stamp onesie stamp on pink patterned paper and cut out.
2. Stamp curly label on kraft cardstock and cut out. Stamp greeting inside.
3. With your white Signo pen dot around the inside of the label.
4. Fold your card in half and punch the bottom edge with your scallop punch.
5. Cut a 1" by 5-1/2" strip of the blue and punch one edge of that with the scallop punch as well. Adhere that scallop side up to the bottom of the inside of your card.
6. Adhere your onesie at an angle on the left side of your card, and the curly label on the right side in the center overlapping your onesie.
   

You Remind Me 8"x8" Page

Wow, it really has been a LONG time since I have blogged! I think you could consider me having been "lost in life" the past few weeks. Seems like every fall I get completely overwhelmed with everything, getting in the motions of a new school year, lots of adjustments this year with Audrey going to school full time now...and me trying to get a hold of my classes at the store. I've been trying to do about one a week, they have been a blast but have definitely kept me busy.

But enough about that - I'm back, and trying to get back to posting projects regularly. Sometimes it seems like it is easy to get into a "scrapbooking rut" for me - it seems like I'm doing the same thing, and then I start to feel uninspired and uncreative. How do I get out of that? Well over the past few years I have come up with a few tried and true ways to get over my creativity blocks. One is new photos. If I get some great new photos that usually gives me a pretty good jump start - sometimes I can't get them on the page fast enough. Then other times it helps just to mix up my page size. Which was what I did with today's project. I've been scrapbooking 12"x12" pages so much lately that I thought I would mix it up a bit and I bought an 8x8 album to play around with. Smaller pages seem to be so much easier to fill for me - just enough room for a 4x6 photo, a title and a little journaling. Not enough room to write a book like I sometimes tend to do. LOL But it really is fun to just play around with a smaller size sometimes. I can't wait to get this 8x8 book filled for the girls. :)

You Remind Me

Ingredients:

• Princess flower paper background (Imaginisce)
• Blue small rhinestones (Kaisercraft)
• Die cut flower overlay (The ScrappyShack Etsy store)
• Black cardstock
• Black .05 Micron pen
• Sewing Machine with white thread

Instructions:

1. Trim your black cardstock to 8x8. Trim your patterned paper background to be 7.5" x 7.5". Adhere this to black square.
2. Trim a strip of pink polka dotted paper to about 2" x 7.5" and adhere on top of flowered patterned paper.
3. Figure out where you are going to put your picture, then put some adhesive down on the patterned paper where your photo will be. Adhere your flower die cut paper. Adhere your photo overtop and that will hide how you adhered the die cut paper.
4. With a zig-zag stitch on your sewing machine stitch around the entire edge of your page. This will hold the edges of your die cut paper in place.
5. Write your journaling with your micron pen on the polka dotted paper and cut out each word. Adhere those to your photo, and to a separate black strip of cardstock if needed.
6. Adhere the strip of black cardstock under your photo.
7. Stitch a little around your photo.
8. Add your blue rhinestones to the centers of some of your die cut flowers.
   

September 4 - Inspiration Journal Class

Time for another class post - I am WAY excited about this one coming up on Saturday!

My mom collects these antique turn-of-the-century romance novels. If you try to read one, let me tell you - they are a HOOT! Believe it or not it is kind of hard to understand slang from over 100 years ago! Anyway, my mom brought me over a few a couple months ago to play around with and I had the best time with them. I made a few journals from them by taking them apart and rebinding them with my Bind-It-All. I added just about everything in there - cardstock for my sketches and drawings, lined paper for notes and journaling ideas, and pocket pages and envelopes to store stuff in. So I found out then that she had enough she would give me to do a class with them! This is going to be one fun class, I can't wait. It's Saturday from noon - 2pm and there is still time to sign up tomorrow if any of you local readers want to take it. I promise you will love the finished book you'll take home with you!

If you want to sign up just call the store tomorrow at (419) 524-2233. I only have a few more spots/books left.

I'll be back tomorrow with another project complete with instructions, I promise! Today just *really* got away from me. Oh, and the lunch box note from a few posts ago...

Audrey didn't even open the envelope at lunch. She just looked at it and brought it home. HA! So much for all that work I put into it! I even put a Hershey kiss in there too and she didn't open that either. Oh well...I guess it was the thought that counts.

I hope you are all having a great week and are looking forward to the weekend, I know I am! Running back and forth to school all the time sure can wear a girl out (I'm talking about me here, not Audrey) :)

Good night!

September 1 - Thank You Cards

I've been working on mass-producing Thank You cards this weekend to send to everyone who took one of my classes in August. I know it will take the element of surprise from the people getting them who took a class in August and read this blog, but the design is SO easy to re-produce I thought it would be a great way to start out the month of September. I often forget to send Thank You notes (yes, slap my hand please!) but I'm REALLY trying to get better at remembering to do it. And the first step is to have Thank You notes/cards on hand, right? So here we go...send one to someone you care about today (or tomorrow since there is no mail today)! :)

Thank You Card

Ingredients:

• Kraft cardstock (Stampin' Up!)
• Patterned Paper (Melissa Frances)
• Scalloped border punch (Fiskars)
• White Pen (Signo)
• Thank You stamp (Stampin' Up!)
• Chocolate Chip ink (Stampin' Up!)
• Pearls & Large Rhinestone (Kaiser Craft)
• Pink Paper Flower (Kaiser Craft)

Instructions:

1. Cut an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of kraft cardstock in half so you have two 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" sized sheets.
2. Fold them in half to make your card.
3. Cut your patterned paper into 5-1/2" x 2" strips.
4. Using your border punch, punch along one of the longer sides of this strip of paper. Adhere it to your card.
5. Stamp your "Thank You" in the middle of your strip that you just adhered to the card.
6. Place a small pearl on each end of the stamped image.
7. Using your white pen dot along the top and the bottom scallop of your patterned paper.
8. Adhere a large rhinestone in the center of your flower and decorate it further with your white pen if you wish. I added some little white dots to each angle of the rhinestone.

That's it - hope you are having a WONDERFUL holiday weekend! :)