Tutorial: How To Make A Welcome Home Sign

Welcome!  Today, I’m going to show you how I altered a wood plaque to make a Welcome Home sign, using the August Album Kit from My Creative Scrapbook.  This is the end project, shown with a little help from my 3-year-old.  

This is how the sign looked when I started:

I bought this wood plaque on clearance from Hobby Lobby after Christmas for 39 cents.  It wasn’t very pretty but I knew it would be easy to alter and was a real bargain at that price.

I considered spray painting the plaque, which would have been an easy fix for a new background, but I wanted to stitch on my squares for a homey look, so I used a cardstock base instead.  I traced the shape of the plaque onto black cardstock, cut it out, then punched eight squares from patterned paper. I used Echo Park Paper’s So Happy Together collection. It’s super cute and had a great sticker in the line that said “welcome home.”  Perfect!

Once I had my squares, I lightly tacked them onto the black background, then used a sewing machine to stitch around them.  Whenever I stitch on a project, I try to put the adhesive in a place where the needle won’t go to avoid ending with a really sticky needle.  In this case, I put the adhesive in the middle of the squares.

The kit included a large chipboard arrow.  It was a little too tall for my plaque, so I snipped off the bottom, covered it in patterned paper, stitched the edges and added a few embellishments.

Here’s a final look at the project.

This was really easy to make.  The plaque can either sit on a shelf or hang on the wall. I think I’m going to put it on my Expedit in my craft room to welcome me there.

Thanks for stopping by.  Don’t forget that PaperHaus magazine launches its inaugural issue on Sept. 1.  The contributors are part of a blog hop with awesome prizes along the way with several grand prizes on the PaperHaus blog. You have until midnight Friday to enter. You can find all the details here.

PaperHaus Magazine Blog Hop & Giveaway

Hello and welcome!  I’m so excited today to be part of a blog hop of contributors for PaperHaus, which is launching Sept. 1.  PaperHaus is a quarterly publication for the scrapbooker, card-maker, mixed media artist and crafters of altered projects and mini albums.  The magazine will feature articles, trends, tutorials and, of course, a multitude of beautiful projects.  And it's all completely free.

You can find the full line-up of participating bloggers on the PaperHaus Magazine blog. Nearly all the bloggers on the hop are offering RAKS along the way, plus the magazine is offering BIG prizes by several manufacturers.  All the details are posted on the PaperHaus blog and Facebook page. The blog hop will be open all week, concluding Sept. 1 with the reveal of PaperHaus' first issue. 

If you are visiting my blog today as part of the hop, you should have arrived here from Aimee Maddern’s blog.

  

For my project, I wanted to express how appreciative I am that you stopped by and are supporting the magazine launch.

I used a mix of products here. Patterned paper, border sticker and covered brad are Crate Paper; doily is Webster’s Pages; sentiment is Jillibean Soup.

The RAK on this stop is a package of camera wood veneers from Studio Calico and a brad set from Echo Park Paper. To be entered in the drawing, follow this blog and leave a comment.  Comments will close on Sept. 1. A winner will be chosen by random draw and announced here on Sept. 2. 

The next stop on the PaperHaus blog hop is Jess Mutty. Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

At Home In Austin: So Happy Together

It was a sad day for me last summer when my cousin, who is like a sister to me and a dear friend, moved to Austin with her two little ones. Her son is the same age as mine and they were the best of friends.  She still has her lake house here and we’ve been lucky that she’s been back often. She is in town this week, in fact.  She is great about sending me pictures, though. I put them on my fridge and in my scrapbook, pages I make for her.

My cousin sent me this photo of her son and little girl by the fence in their yard and I knew immediately that it would be perfect for Echo Park Paper’s So Happy Together collection. 

This is another project I made with the August Album Kit at My Creative Scrapbook. I love these kits!  This particular paper, the background, was a scene paper and I arranged my photo mat on the page to both cover up and incorporate the scene by echoing the flowers in the design.   Actually, I flipped the background paper upside down because that worked best for my design, placing the heavy flower vine on the bottom left to anchor the page and leaving me a spot for a big title block.  

I think the kids look so sweet and innocent in the photo, just chilling with their sippy cups.  The Echo Park sticker, “finding joy in watching you grow,” was just the right touch.

  

Sigh. Babies grow too fast.

Using Sketches and Bella Blvd: Sweet!

On our beach trip this year, the boys would relax every afternoon with a popsicle on the deck. I don't know if it was their favorite part of the day, but it was ours.  They were finally quiet and sitting still for five minutes! After we got home, Cory decided that we needed to stock our fridge with popsicles and they have become a staple now in the house. It's hard to resist a summer treat.

I used Bella Blvd's Sunshine and Happiness collection for this page with a little bit of Baby Boy. The two collections work great together. 

Here's a closeup of the top of the page:

The layout is based on the new August sketch at My Creative Sketches.

This sketch was really fun to use and adapt. I made the title square on the left into a long pennant, clustered the other squares closer together and used a butterfly trail rather than the flower swirl.  You can see all the different ways the design team interpreted the sketch on the blog.  

This sketch is for our monthly challenge, which starts today and runs through Sept. 14.  Add your interpretation to be entered for a great prize. Winners will be announced Sept. 15.  You can find all the details here.

Echo Park Paper: So Happy Together

Last month, I had an extra fun surprise in my design team package from My Creative Scrapbook.  The kit club releases several kits each month and in addition to my regular kit, the owner also sent me the August album kit.  It was filled with Echo Park Paper and lots of fun embellishments. Yay!  I couldn’t wait to play.

Today, I have one of the layouts I made with this kit, which featured EP's So Happy Together collection.  I love this scene paper.  It’s super cute, easy to work with, and I thought the bare pine trees looked a bit like winter. So I decided to make a winter scene.

Using a scene paper makes quick work of a page because much of the design is already done for you.  Here, I used a photo to cover up part of the scene in the lower right (it was more houses and trees) and then let the scene on the paper guide the rest of my design.  

To make the snowclouds, I added white buttons from the kit.  I had them overlap the edges of the clouds a bit so the clouds would look heavy with snow.  The paper had white doodled stitches around the frame and I stitched over those with a machine to add a subtle touch of texture

I added a title next to the photo.  The alphas on the letter sticker sheet weren’t quite the color I wanted so I used an acrylic paint dabber to recolor them.  It worked like a charm.

Here’s a photo of the MCS August Album Kit.  It’s packed full of yumminess.  For more information on this kit or other kits at My Creative Scrapbook, please visit here.

  

Linking here to Tip Me Tuesday.

Fun with Puns: Layout and a Card Set with Little Yellow Bicycle

I’m back today with more projects from the August creative kit at My Creative Scrapbook. This kit featured the Splash collection from Little Yellow Bicycle and is such a happy paper line, perfect for summer.

We live in the South and the local spraygrounds are a favorite hangout for kids of all ages. My little boy is 3 and he just loves to go play in the water. The sprayground is basically a bunch of sprinklers, and, really, what could be more fun when the temperatures hover around 90 degrees?

I love the big die cut circle with the colorful scalloped edges and wanted to mimick that look with a half-circle banner. To make the banner, I punched circles, then folded them over a length of twine.

At the bottom of the page, I used some of the LYB vellum strips to make little pennants. I backed the vellum with white cardstock then wrapped it around hat pins.

 

I also used the collection to make a pair of summer cards. This Splash line had the cutest “fabric favorites" embellishments. The bathing suits called to me and I knew right away that I would want to make coordinating boy and girl cards.

 

For the boy card, I made a tag from patterned paper then affixed the swimming trunks and a sentiment. I made pennants with the washi tape and hat pins as described in the layout above.

 

For the girl version, I used the same base and made a tag from coordinating patterned paper. To complete the card, I added the swimsuit and umbrella from the fabric fabrics and a sentiment with letter stickers from Jillibean Soup. Love these alphabeans.

I love making coordinating cards. It makes fast work of a card set to use similar designs and the same card base.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a great weekend.

Tutorial: How To Make A Looped Twine Flower

I took a little break from layouts and cards to make an altered project: decorated flip flops.  I don’t know if these will be super practical to wear, but they were fun to make and that’s what counts. :)   

I used Trendy Twine’s Krazy for Kraft to make the twine flowers on these flip flops.  The flowers were easy to do, but you will need to fashion a little loom to make the loops.  The size of the flowers depends on the size of your loom.  My loom was 3-inches across because I needed fairly large flowers for the flip flops, but you could make the loom any size and follow the same principle.

To make the loom, I cut a 3-inch circle from corrugated cardboard. I marked it like a clock with 12 at the top and 6 at the bottom.  I didn’t measure the distances between each time.  I just eyeballed it.  It isn’t necessary to be super accurate with these flowers.  Once I had my circle marked like a clock, I stuck straight pins in at each number.   This was my loom.

To make the flowers, I cut an 8-foot piece of twine. I started the twine by looping one end over the pin at 12, then looped it down to 6.  From there, I looped 11 down to 5 and 10 down to 4, etc., looping opposite numbers each time.  Do this until you have made two complete passes of the loom.

To secure the loops, use the remaining length of twine to backstitch through each petal then tie off.  This is the back of the flower and won't show.

To remove the flower from the loom, take out the pins.  Flip the flower over and add a decorative center, if desired. I added brads from Echo Park Paper. 

You can find more beach-themed twine projects on the Trendy Twine blog. To play along with the August challenge, visit the blog here and link your project. We can't wait to see what you make!

My Creative Scrapbook Reveal: Little Yellow Bicycle

It's reveal day at My Creative Scrapbook. Yay!  Now, I can post the things that I have been working on for the last few weeks.  I worked with two kits this month and I am going to show you the Creative Kit today. This kit featured Little Yellow Bicycle's Splash collection and it is a real favorite of mine.

The timing was great for this kit because I got back from the beach on the same day the kit arrived, so I had lots of new photos that worked well with this collection.

This is the first layout I made, Hot Fun in the Summertime.  The title is from an old tune by Sly & The Family Stone and was also covered by The Beach Boys. I had this song running through my head the whole time I was making this page.

The paper was originally oriented with the big splash on the bottom, but I rotated the page 90 degrees to give me a better spot for my titlework.

And here's a closeup of the bottom of the page. I love this photo of my son, running to get in the ocean as soon as we got there!

My second layout also uses a beach photo. Here, my son is waiting for the next wave and it looks like he's surfing. He's only 3, so he hasn't quite mastered surfing yet, but I went with that for this page.

I love this little fishie paper that's in the background. Super cute!  To make the sun, I used a small rectangle of cardstock and made cuts into it for a stylized sun.  I used a sticker negative - from in the word HOT in the previous layout - as the the sun's center.

Here's a closeup of the bottom of the layout. I made a surfboard from patterned paper, then pop-dotted a big splash sticker on top.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I'll have more projects from the kits at My Creative Scrapbook later this week.  You can find out more about My Creative Scrapbook at the home page here.  

It's A Flip Flop Kind Of Day: Trendy Twine & LYB

I’m so happy today to be posting a fun summer project made with two of my favorite things: Trendy Twine and Little Yellow Bicycle's Splash collection from the August kit at My Creative Scrapbook. 

I have two cards up today: a boy card and a girl card. Let’s start with the boy version.

Aw, now don’t those flip flops look lonely? They make me want to run over, drop my sandals next to his, and relax at the beach.

The little towel was really easy to make. I started with a rectangle of patterned paper, approximately 4 x 2.5 inches. On the back, I added a piece of cardboard that was a bit shorter than the towel on each end. This gave me a guide for where to put the twine and also helped raise the towel to the same thickness as the twine so it would sit even on my card front.

On the back of the towel, I used my ATG to run a couple strips of double-sided tape where the twine fringe would be.  Then I added the twine, looping it tightly together.  The twine I used was Krazy for Kraft.  It's a versatile khaki color from Trendy Twine that folds very nicely for this purpose.  

This view shows the front side of the towel after I had added the twine, but before I trimmed the fringe with scissors. 

I thought the card needed a little edging by the fringe, so I added a scallop border sticker from an Echo Park Paper element sheet.  The border strip was much wider on the sticker sheet, but I cut it down to a very narrow strip.

sheet.

Then, I added flip flops and a sentiment.

I got the idea for the card from this pin on Pinterest.

For the girl card, I followed the same process, this time using Berry Red twine.

For more ideas on using twine and for information on our August challenge, please visit the Trendy Twine blog.

Linking to Tip Me Tuesday. 

Sneek Peek: My Creative Scrapbook August Kits

Hi everyone. I have some sneak peeks for you today from the August kits at  My Creative Scrapbook.  I had so much fun working with two kits and two different lines this month. Can you tell what they are?

　

We also have a really fun Tim Holtz giveaway this week of a brand new Stampers Anonymous stamp set that just made its debut at CHA. You can find all the details here on the My Creative Scrapbook blog.

It’s easy to enter but be quick:  the giveaway closes at midnight Aug. 4 and we’ll announce the winner on August 5, reveal day for the new monthly kits. 

Thanks for stopping by. I'll be back tomorrow with a pair of summer cards.